Mikey And Mandy:Dr. Susan Block Meets the Press
By Mandy
I once told Mikey that the problem with this society, especially in the arts, was that it had of late been “Botoxed,” rather than repressed. Newsmen like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann tell jokes in between stories of Iraqi causalities; American Idol crowned Jordan Sparks the best, and from my 20 years in the music business, I feel justified calling her an overweight Holiday Inn Karaoke Singer.
Endless edited footage of ass-scratching reality has replaced the heightened reality of scripted drama on TV. Our books are written by Dr. Phil instead of William Faulkner.
I could go on ad nauseum. But the problem is simple: Fear. Creativity is risk and risk is extreme, not tailored to the lowest common denominator for greedy bucks.
I saw that same sad Botox-ing last Saturday Night at Dr. Susan Block’s cavernous, totally original 20,000+ square foot loft on Saturday night. The week before she had been written up in L.A. Weekly for those almost illegal sexual hi-kinks the place is known for among the people who pass it on, some secret knowledge whispered in the Industry.
I remember the first time Penny Antine (who wrote the porn classic “The Devil in Miss Jones,” and many other award-winning hardcore films under the pseudonym Raven Touchstone) brought myself and a statuesque Black woman named Carol to Susan Block’s museum of The Naughty. We were both speechless. Penny wasn’t, she was an old friend and her entrancing erotic photographs taken on porn sets were a small part of the art that adorned every inch of the place.
It sure wasn’t heaven, and it felt too good for Hell, but one thing was obvious: The sexual circus had come to town. Susan was holding court and doing a live TV show on an outrageous circular pink bed filled with hundreds of sacred and profane artifacts, dressed like an 18th century New Orleans hooker, and holding a snake.
Maybe fifteen or more photographers and cameramen from places as diverse as La Brea to The Ukraine and U.K. couldn’t get close enough. Beautiful men and women came (literally) on the bed as guests, eventually lapsing into an orgy of sucking, squirting, and you can’t imagine what else. No drugs, though. Female Amazonian Sexual Power was the theme here; Mikey told me he often felt intimidated. I felt empowered and wet.
Susan’s place, as mentioned, is also a huge art museum with excellent work and some ancient sculptures; it has a TV studio, dressing rooms as large as bedrooms and an endless wardrobe closet. I was a fairly recent L.A. transplant that first night and felt as though I had found the secret womb of the Pagans.
Of course, a lot of this overall musky atmosphere had to do with the audience. Porn stars, wannbe Porn Stars, Glorious Gender Illusionists, Pony Girls and Guys, all mingling and exchanging cards/cell numbers. You never left without making a friend, a contact, seeing something out of X-Files (or the XXX Files) while Susan masturbated herself and others and her husband ranted up to a fevered pitch about George Bush.
That was then, as they say. This is Now. The dreaded Botox virus invaded this Electric Circus. Because last week, the mainstream found out about Suzie’s; L.A. Weekly recommended the spot, and the place transformed from OZ back to Kansas, from passionate color to Geek-ish black and white.
Susan spoke a bit but not much happened—and to give her due credit, she has spent the last year recovering from a very serious illness. Gone were the porn stars, though, except for some skinny girls in cheap see-through dresses. Gone was that glorious Fall of Rome decadence vibrating through the air. Instead, there were a lot of — yes, I’ll say it
– guys who couldn’t get laid in a whorehouse wearing regular work clothes; one or two of them must have bought a leather vest from HSN and decided this was the night to “get funky.”
Everyone was told to “SHUT UP!” during taping, at a volume akin to the one they used to shoot “Star Wars.” Reverie and madness were gone; people stared at glasses, or stood, all waiting for something to happen.
I sat on a sofa after interviewing people about why they were there (tales of rotten divorces, a timid drag queen badly made-up and about seven feet tall on her first foray out as a woman). It was that dull party where you wonder if you can leave after a half hour, or ask someone to call you on the cell phone with an emergency to escape bondage — and not the good kind.
Mikey agreed, and was at a loss about what to shoot. Usually, between Annie Body squirting while being bitten by a snake, and Avy Lee Roth eating out her lead singer, he would be frantically darting around with his cameras. You could get 100 pictures from the crowd. I think he got one.
Of course, Mikey and I are grateful for Susan’s help and kindness through the years and wish her well. Actually, I hope the “hip mainstream” goes away and the carnival freaks (like myself) return. Because Yale-educated, and respected Dr. Suze without true Porn is like those soft-core movies on TV: the directing, acting, writing, and lighting are substandard, and they cut out the screwing scenes except for the faces pretending orgasm. They might do the trick for the much, much younger, but not for anyone legal and erotic.
And think, if the Democrats get elected, it could get even worse! A little repression is good for the passionate rebel. A lot is even better. Who had to drink poison? Socrates, right? Galileo? And remember the sad end of the Marquis de Sade. Be careful what you pray for, porn fans, because you’ll end up with nada. I can sense it within my drying vagina.
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