Monthly Archives: December 2008

Bettie Revisited

Posted on by Frank

A teenage preoccupation with breasts could have been attributed to a lack of natural feedings in infancy. Or it could have been simple jealousy – I didn’t have breasts but girls did and they just weren’t sharing enough. A bit of psychoanalysis might have found another root to my fixations. It wasn’t just Anne Francis followed by a legion of B-Flick vixens that had bolstered my taste for supernatural monsters while nurturing a prepubescent sense of perversity. It was something more, something heavier chested than all the rest. It was Ingrid Pitt.

Vanna come up to my place and get undead?

 

My oldest, non-imaginary friend on earth, Hal Shrader, pointed this out. He noticed there was something I’d neglected in the Bettie Page post and it was the top-heavy, sex-oozy, demonic Ms. Pitt. When we were kids in Yuma we’d decompress from Sunday School by playing Husker Du while monsters shredded humans on TV. On one of those afternoons our favorite board game got stalled by the debut of Ingrid Pitt on the screen. It was The Vampire Lovers. Jesus, even with a stake through the heart she was hot.

 

I used to collect Famous Monsters trading cards (baseball cards are for the fat kids). They were awesome wallet portraits – The Amazing Melting Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Mushroom People, Linda Blair – and by the time my mom packed us up and returned the family to RI my Ingrid Pitt card no longer had the filmography & trivia on the back. The front was so pocket-worn that the draculicious Pitt looked more like Hedorah, the smog monster from Godzilla movies.

 

At nine years old, it was a good thing the original, uncut British version of The Vampire Lovers wasn’t available in the states. It is more “European”, in the sense that Pitt has a naked romp with another woman. I was a sexually preoccupied teen as it was, but an earlier exposure to that girl-girl bloodsucker scene would have set me on the path for years of even greater disappointment. Instead of prancing for weeks, deflowered at fourteen, I might have stumbled around in a sour funk like a spoiled brat who only got half the list he gave Santa. What the heck do mean? You can only lose your virginity to ONE girl? I got gypped!

 

Yikes! The topic of this post may be getting away from me now. So, let’s call this a simple addendum to my reflections on Bettie Page. Anne Francis is still secure atop my list of the most beautiful women, whether or not they frolicked with robots, and Bettie has to squeeze a bit to make room for Ingrid Pitt. And that should do it for my history with celluloid ladies.

 

Unless…wait…what about The Brain that Wouldn’t Die? That evil, decapitated head kept alive on a lab table? Motherfu…mmm, damn! What a doll!!!

Cookie of the Mid-Month

Posted on by Frank
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( This Installment of Cookie of the Month was brought to you by  a colleague of my wife, who sent us this brand new addiction as a Christmas present. God Bless You, Christina Oh! )

C'mon, baby, I just need a little taste...

C

 

   I was tempted to knock the M&M off its current Cookie of the Month pedestal after sinking my teeth into two or three of these babies: Molasses Clove cookies. Clearly, the tried and true M&M didn’t deserve a kick to the curb but this new treat had temporarily fuddled up my thoughts.  With my eyes rolling back in my head, chanting mmuuuhhhhuhuh muuuuuhhhh after each chewy, sprinklely gnaw at ecstasy I had to shove my daughter off my lap as I became snickerdoodled into a case of gonflement phallique.  It could have made for some necessarily awkward explanations – I haven’t yet cozied up to the notion of explaining boy physiology to girl-children or how Dad came to be the kind of weirdo who gets semis over baked goods. Digress and digress. Anyhow I turned to her with half a mouthful and lips glittering with spiced sugar granules and exclaimed “Holy tshschit, Elsie! You gotta try one of these…”

   After a hesitant nibble, Elsie grimaced and said, “I don’t like it, Daddy”

   Freakin’ little pretend Philistine, I thunk. I know her routine – she hates everything at first but I’ll be stowing the Molasses Clove cookies on top of the cabinets anyway. When it comes to treats like these, her initial, sneering disapproval is a ruse; she’ll be raiding my stash the moment I turn my back. And demand was going to annihilate the supply rapidly as her brother Jack was already hooked, evidenced by his crumb-spackled grin and continuing crotch adjustments.

   Now, the cookie’s name might leave a bit too much to the imagination. You could be reading this and thinking, “Molasses & Clove? Gaaaack, I hate both of those flavors. Screw that cookie and damn it all to hell!” To which I’d reply, “Nooo! No, no, no! Just shut up for a second and put one of these in your cursing mullet…mmm? Ahh? See? I told you….”One of the real beauties of this succulent biscuit is that it ain’t particularly deep on molasses flavor and the cloves are but a teasing waft – like driving through mountainous  Kintamani in Bali or romping through Santa’s laundry. They’re exactly like gingerbread – if you could remove all the suck from that traditional holiday abomination. Ginger bread usually has too much clove and molasses – but Molasses Clove cookies don’t.

   I may take a stab at recreating these over the weekend and building a suck-free gingerbread house. A huge Molasses Clove castle to crawl inside at night to be alone with my dirty, dirty bakery fantasies. I’ll probably need a moat and some cannons to defend it. My duplicitous, demon-angel just came into the kitchen to ask, “Daddy…can I have one of those cookies?

   What cookies, Elsie? I don’t know anything about any cookies…

 

Get the fix here – http://www.dancingdeer.com   They appear to sell them at dandy grocery stores too.

Betty Page – The Death of Somebody Nobody Knew

Posted on by Frank

 Bettie Page Died.  Betty Paige died?   No, Bettie Page Dide. 

 

Passing of an Icon

Passing of an Icon

  

  I am nearly speechless over the news that last century’s second most famous pin-up girl died. Part of that is because she died of normal causes – apparently cardiac arrest as a complication of pneumonia – and not from asphyxiating on a ball-gag in her mouth.  She just didn’t pass away funny enough for commentary.    

  I’m also at a loss for words, at least where the actual Bettie Page is concerned, because I wasn’t among the legions of worshippers – perving men, second rate actresses, Goth chicks (or riot girrlz or punk nerds or pasty white style-dykes or whatever the hell they call themselves now).

   Now, don’t get me wrong, I think some of those early Bettie Page stills reveal one of the sexiest women ever to ride an Indian motorcycle in a leopard skin loin cloth.  From physique to haircut to wildly expressive face that woman was a tough act to follow. Nevertheless, if there is a particular look that more women have tried to duplicate than any other then it’s the one original to Bettie Page.

I suppose my ambivalence over this iconic famous vixen stems from the fact that I’d been a Bettie Page fan, in a way, long before I’d ever heard her name or had seen a deck of her dirty playing cards.  The statuesque, sturdy, dark-haired girl with B+ cups had already been ingrained as an archetype female from countless Saturdays spent watching monster flicks on Creature Double Feature.  By the time I became aware of Ms. Page there was little for her to do beside nudge Lynda Carter and Farrah Fawcett down on my roster of beautiful women.  She would, however always remain in the shadow of some nameless brunettes who’d been poisoned by Triffids or devoured by demon tiki poles. And even they were fated to mere backup roles behind the utter magnificence of that goddess from Forbidden Planet, Anne Francis.*

Anyhow…Betty Page.  For a woman whose photos portray a vibrant, fun-loving human being it seems she had more than her share of downs in life. That’s a shame for anybody. But her obit in the New York Times and some biographies on the net suggest that her final years were spent happier – and that has to count for something.  A heart attack probably meant she passed with a look of shock on her face, but I hope she had been smiling up to that point.  She deserved that after all – sarcasm aside, the world would have been a drearier, less interesting place without people like her.  Goodbye, Bettie – you done good.

*I oughta note that Anne Francis is actually a tawny blonde, which should help improve the appreciation of this article in Mrs. Roberts’s eyes…

Lastly, without a personal collection of Bettie Page erotica to upload, here’s an impromptu graphic tribute to the queen of thick, raven locks and straight cut bangs:

   
Here’s Bettie Page in Color:   
                                                                                Bettie in Stiletto Boots!

                                                              

 

How she might look without skin: 

                                                                                                                               

A Titillating Skeleton Pin-Up?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                  

               Miss Page after lying exposed on an Andean plateau for 500 years:

This is the Internal Anatomy of a Chicken!