Archives for February 2011

One of my favorite all time fashion websites is called the Sartorialist.  This blogger takes fantastic fashion photos from all over, a combination of both fashion shows and people on the street, and post them to his blog.  There are minimal words needed as the fashion often speaks for itself.

A recent post of his highlighted the fantastic use of turquoise and mustard in fashion in London. Maybe it’s not even turquoise so much as cerulean?  Do you remember that color from Crayola’s 99 box of crayons?  For some reason it always resonated with me, and blue isn’t even my color!  You can check it out by visiting the link above for more ideas on what I am about to discuss.

I just love this combo, though.  I have even accidentally found myself pairing these colors together, because I love the color pop and nice contrast.  What’s great about this look is it migrates very easily from late winter to early spring, and can continue on and be re-vived the following winter.

The best part?  We can pull this off in a variety of ways that don’t involve spending tons of cash.

Scarves and Jewelry

You can be even bolder by showing off this color on your legs.  You can always find a fun array of tights at either American Apparel or Hue, and we all know my favorite shoe brand is Seychelles, as shown right here!

A tip for shopping for any of these items, those, is to search for “mustard” not “yellow”.  Yellow brings up that nasty banana peel color no one likes and screams of the early 90s.

NYC’s Interpol is currently on their world tour supporting their fourth album, ‘Interpol’, which arrived in the Fall.

Even with showman bass player and founding member Carlos D no longer in the fold, and despite being a band that plays under stark staging completely side and back lit, they continue to be an energetic and entertaining live show.

Fans immediately noticed the (drastic) haircut on vocalist Paul Banks, and I’m convinced that not many musicians out there doing their thing today are better at playing guitar than Daniel Kessler.

The set list did a nice job of breaching the new songs with everything else in their repertoire, representing all of their records in pretty equal measure.

Here’s how it looked:

What a glorious wonderful way to start a Thursday! If my knees weren’t made of balsa wood and I had any rhythm, I’d be dancing for joy. Even the usual cacophony of car alarms and screaming couples sound like music to my ears. Suffice it to say that, without getting into the gory details, I’m in a good mood. In fact, I’m in such a good mood that I’m going to forgo my usual litany of Apocalypses and Armageddons. Instead, today, I’m going to write about a subject that most of you probably never consider. Well except for my good buddy, Gregg Potter. This kind of stuff is all he thinks about. When he’s not winning Emmy’s or playing drums in mega-hair-bands, that is.

Today we’re going to talk about the joys of senior citizens who star in porn.

Now, before you start running around, hiding your eyes from all the nakee folks and demanding a smiting or two, keep in mind that there’s been porn for as long as man has made graphic art. Even back in the legendary city of Pompeii, scholars and plebeians alike have found thousands of examples of art featuring naked people doing naked stuff with other naked people.

Far from being ashamed, they put that stuff on their living room walls.

“Oh, hi Sparticus. Yeah, that’s Bathsheba and me from last Tuesday. I think it really shows off her good side, don’t you?”

As time went on and cameras were invented, do you think everyone was out taking pictures of nature and family portraits? Of course not. They were taking pictures of naked women. And men. And whatever else struck their fancy. You’ll have to Google for that stuff yourself. I don’t want to be held responsible for your moral decay.

In the last few decades, thank to the Internet …. wait, actually the Internet should thank porn. All of the advances required to post high quality graphics and videos on line were developed in the porn industry and nowhere else. In other words, the internet owes more to the disciples of Hugh Hefner than Al Gore. Keep that in mind the next time you watch a video on You Tube.

What was once relegated to smoky back rooms and seedy bachelor parties is now feted with award shows. Chicago’s very own, and regular guest on Nude Hippo, Jim “Mr. Skin” McBride recently hosted his annual Anatomy Awards. With categories like “Breast in Film” and “Nudecomer of the Year,” starlets the world over anxiously anticipate winning a trophy. Seriously, the Anatomy Awards get more pub than most any other accolade.

So I guess this all explains why a former U.S. Army Lt. Colonel made a career change at the tender age of 54 to become a porn star. As David Moye at AOL News notes, not only did he become a porn star, he’s been added to porn’s ultimate Hall of Fame.

The phrase “do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” seems completely apropos for porn actor Dave Cummings.

Although Cummings (born David Connors) turns 71 in a few weeks, an age when many of his contemporaries have retired, he is still working hard at his craft, almost 17 years after entering what insiders refer to simply as “the industry.”

The efforts have paid off: Cummings is one of this year’s inductees in the X-Rated Critics Organization’s Hall of Fame Class of 2011, an honor handed out to, as the press release says, “only the best and brightest in the world of porn.”

“I feel like I’ve accomplished something I never would have imagined,” Cummings told AOL News.

There is no physical address for the Hall of Fame. Cummings’ induction ceremony in April will also honor Tricia Devereaux, Jessica Drake, Lynn Lemay, Juli Ashton, Manuel Ferrara and Peter Van Aarle.

He is the oldest inductee ever, four years older than actor Jamie Gillis, who died last year at the age of 66 from AIDS.

But Cummings sticks out among these luminaries of lust, not only because of his age but also because of his rep for not relying on, shall we say, performance-enhancing drugs.

“I pride myself on never using Viagra,” he said. “When I started out, I never did. Now I might use it if I’m working with a particularly demanding director, or if I’m doing two scenes right after each other.”

According to XRCO member Gram Ponante, the Hall of Fame honor is given only to performers who show some kind of staying power.

“For those of us who appreciate adult films, this is very prestigious,” Ponante said. “We don’t bestow the awards lightly.

“I live in Los Angeles, and when I go to lecture in other parts of the country, [Cummings] is one of the few names people know. He bridges the gap between ‘creepy uncle’ and the person the creepy uncle wanted to be,” Ponante said.

Cummings is only four years older than the second oldest inductee, Gillis, but he is a bit of a late bloomer. Gillis started his career in 1970s, while Cummings only entered the world of porn at the age of 54 after a long career in the military, where he worked his way up to lieutenant colonel. Along the way, he served as an Army unit commander with the 4th Infantry during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

He was awarded a Bronze Star and, later, had a stint teaching personnel management at West Point before moving to San Diego.

“That was a great experience,” he told AOL News. “My teenagers were surrounded by more than 4,100 role models.”

Cummings was working as a mortgage loan officer (which he still does on occasion for some of his fellow performers) when his life changed forever at the age of 54.

“My wife left me after 22 years of marriage,” he said. The story he tells is that she left him for a man with more hair. Although he claims he was faithful during the marriage, once he was single he decided to explore the swinger lifestyle.

But being a single male in the swinger world is hard (and not in the good way), and Cummings took his lumps. Still, he had a chance meeting in the biblical sense with famed porn actress Nina Hartley.

“We were having sex two rooms away from where I’m talking to you now,” Cumming said proudly. “And I asked her why they had a guy younger than her playing a judge that was supposed to be older, and she told me I should try out.”

Cummings had to pay his dues, though. His big break came when he was holding a light during a scene and the male talent was unable to, er, finish the job.

From there, he started getting steady jobs, in films with titles like “Every Granny Has a Fantasy” and “It’s A Daddy Thing,” often playing doctors, politicians, judges and, occasionally, a military officer.

“I never wanted to desecrate my uniform,” he said. “So I changed it by adding a medal for Antarctic exploration, and I changed the name on the name tag from my real name to ‘Cummings.'”

As much as Cummings enjoyed being on camera — and still does — he quickly realized that the real money is in production.

“When I started out, I was paid $300 per scene,” he said. “I won’t do that. I might for $500.”

He currently has three successful series, “Dirty Dave’s Sugar Daddy,” “Sex Fun” and “Kneepad Nymphos” and prides himself on the way he treats his talent.

“Some of the girls who enter the business are a little skittish at first, so sometimes their agents will send them to me because I’m nice.”

Believe it or not, much of what he learned in the military for dealing with soldiers in the heat of battle is transferable to dealing with young actresses who are in, well, the heat.

“It’s important to be thorough and do lots of pre-planning,” Cummings said. “For instance, when booking girls for ‘Kneepad Nymphos,’ I give an advance fact sheet to the agents, I set a private bathroom for the actress with her name on a star and I pay cash on the spot. Some people might just give hundreds, but I break it down a little because I understand they might need gas and the station can’t break a hundred-dollar bill.”

The extra touches are why Cummings has a good reputation among former co-stars such as Jewels Jade, who is currently on the cover of Penthouse.

“He’s done a lot for me,” she said. “When I was starting out, I didn’t know a lot of people in the business. He took me under his wing and told me who I should and shouldn’t work with. He also helped me get in Playboy.”

Trisha Uptown, who has never worked on film with Cummings, as she only does girl-girl scenes, also has high words of praise for him.

“He’s always a gentleman. He gives me his jacket if I’m cold. He’s so adorable. He’s just this old man who does what he loves,” Uptown said. “I always say that if I ever transition to boy-girl, he’d be on top of my to-do list.”

Cummings doesn’t just have admirers among professional porn actresses. He claims he’s got a few groupies made up of coeds from the University of California at San Diego, which is a few blocks away from his condo in San Diego.

“I call them the ‘groupie girls,'” he said. “They are students, many of them Asian, who need to relieve stress so they can study hard. Some jog, some go to nightclubs and some call me up.

“But I have rules. I insist on using protection, and I tell them they’re not spending the night. Also, if it’s within my birthday month, I insist they bring chocolate chip cookies.

Since Cummings turns 71 on March 13, he expects the cookies to start coming in soon.

“I can tell which are homemade and which are made with store-bought cookie dough,” he said.

Cummings also has admirers among his own gender as well, so much so that he keeps a hat and glasses in his car so he can avoid being recognized by guys who wish they were him.

“It happened just today,” he said. “I was having lunch with a friend, and a guy recognized me and wanted his picture with me. One picture led to four questions and, basically, my friend gets to eat his lunch while mine is going cold.”

It might sound strange that a man who spent so many years fighting for our country might choose to spend his golden years having sex with women old enough to be his great-granddaughter, but Cummings feels that one of the freedoms he defended was the right to make or watch porn.

“It’s all about freedom, whether it’s the freedom to do porn, or to worship in a church, or to be a parent or to vote,” he said.

The official induction ceremony isn’t until April 13, but Cummings is already working on his acceptance speech during his daily run.

“I will probably talk about the problem of piracy, remind the audience of the soldiers fighting for us and then I will probably remind everyone to vote,” he said.

“Gosh Grandpa, while that Bronze Star is nice and all, the kids really love your work in Kneepad Nymphos 3!”

Yeah, the lighting is fantastic and the plot is scintillating.

I’ve taken up enough of your time today. Go, frolic, watch some porn and have a great day. If you need a soundtrack for your day you can’t do much better than the video from, Chicago’s very own, LaTour.

We live in an information age. It’s relatively easy for someone to test ideas, look at precedents and ascertain comments without once leaving home. Many companies set up password protected pages for their employees so they can look at, and comment on, concepts before they go public. It’s a very cost effective way to do market research. Because what seems like a great idea in a bourbon soaked board room may not get the anticipated reception from the working masses. Just ask the nice people who released Zombie Jerky. Much to their surprise the USDA took umbrage with the biohazard label festooned on the package. While the product may be whimsical, it’s still food and telling people they’re eating radioactive waste tends to cause problems. Although the caveat “Not made with human flesh” was accepted because, as you may not have known, jerky isn’t made with human flesh.

Yeah, I’m sorry, I know you’re bummed.

Nevertheless, before we go tear apart this week’s biggest idiot, I’d like to take a moment to look at some of history’s greatest marketing blunders.

In the mid-70’s Chevrolet released the Nova in Mexico to a resounding thud. “No Va” in Spanish means “No Go.”

Oops.

The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read “Are you lactating?”

Teenage boys thought this slogan was great.

Coors put its slogan, “Turn It Loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer From Diarrhea”.

Finally, truth in advertising.

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign, “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.

Not even Wanda from the cheer squad? I demand proof!

Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick,” a curling iron with a name that translated into “manure.”

Well, that would curl my hair.

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what’s inside, since many people can’t read.

“Look mommy! I got the white kid! They taste just like chicken!”

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called “Cue”, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

“You want me to put WHAT on my teeth?”

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I Saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “I Saw the Potato” (la papa).

In their defense, it was a very nice potato.

Pepsi’s “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave” in Chinese.

What is it with companies and zombies? Did I miss a memo somewhere?

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Kekoukela”,meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “kokou kole”, translating into “happiness in the mouth”.

And that still sounds dirty.

Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.”

I have several friends who can attest to that.

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” The company thought that the word “embarazar” (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

I see a brief anatomy lesson in their future.

When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its “Fly In Leather” campaign literally, which meant “Fly Naked” (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

Thanks to the TSA we’ll probably be doing that anyway, may as well get ahead of the curve.

You would think that in this age of easy access to past humiliations, someone somewhere in Indiana might have mentioned that this new ad campaign had some flaws. Maybe not. After all, this is the state that is home to the dumbest city in America. And, given the competition, that’s quite an accomplishment.

So maybe it should come as no surprise that MSNBC notes that the Hacienda Restaurant chain compared their fine dining to committing mass suicide while stoked with faux-religious fervor.

Yeah, I bet you’re hungry already.

A northern Indiana restaurant that erected billboards referring to the 1978 Jonestown cult massacre in which more than 900 people died has removed the signs following complaints that the signs were offensive.

Jeff Leslie, vice president of sales and marketing at Hacienda, acknowledged that the billboards were a mistake. He said the South Bend-based company ordered the signs removed less than two weeks into Hacienda’s new advertising campaign.

“Our role is not to be controversial or even edgy. We want to be noticed — and there’s a difference,” Leslie told the South Bend Tribune. “We have a responsibility to (advertise) with care, and that’s why we’re pulling this ad. We made a mistake and don’t want to have a negative image in the community.”

The billboards included the statement, “We’re like a cult with better Kool-Aid,” over a glass containing a mixed drink, as well as the phrase “To die for!”

In November 1978, more than 900 members of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple drank cyanide-laced, grape-flavored punch in a mass murder and suicide in the group’s compound in Guyana.

Patricia Barbera-Brown of South Bend, who lives a few blocks away from one of the billboards, said she was so shocked when she initially read the message that she drove around the block.

“I thought perhaps I had misread the sign,” she recalls. “It brought back quite a few horrible images and memories, and the very notion that a local restaurant would trivialize such a worldwide tragedy to simply increase their sales of cocktails is outrageous to me, and it offended me to the core.”

She sent an e-mail to Hacienda’s executive telling them the billboards weren’t “funny at all,” calling them “extremely offensive and very irresponsible marketing.”

Hacienda executives responded in writing, apologizing for offending her and informing her that the billboards would be taken down.

Like many restaurant companies, Leslie said Hacienda uses billboard advertising to connect with the community and resonate with customers. He said that company leaders look every year at their restaurants, the economy, their customers, and the competition to determine an idea or theme to use for advertising.

As they brainstormed about how people belong to clubs and teams, he said they discussed how an entity can develop a cult following of like-minded people.

“It went the wrong direction, hit a nerve, and we have come to realize we should not have done this billboard. We lose the core message,” he said.

Katherine Sredl, assistant professor of marketing at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, agreed that the company’s message came across wrong.

“They want people to think there are more things to love there than the food, but it’s not the right humor for its clientele,” she said.

Really? They went from thinking about their local Rotary Club to Jim Jones? They somehow discovered the fine line between liking a Ford Truck and walling yourself off in an anti-social compound, and then crossed it?

What the hell was in their Kool-Aid?

One quick side note before you watch the video; before he was STATIC X, Heavy Metal Superstar, he was Wayne, a really nice guy with some great songs. I knew him then and we’re still in touch now. One thing he’s not, however, is stupid. Okay, now you can go enjoy his song.

Static X – I'm With Stupid

I’ve actually managed to stick with my New Years Resolution so far this year…. it’s called, “52 Bags In 52 Weeks”… and it’s all about getting rid of stuff that clutters up your house. It’s such a great resolution, and one that I can actually stick to. Every year I always find myself making a resolution that I get bored with a couple of weeks into January… but this year my husband has loved watching my clutter dwindle down, week by week.

The other day my mom told me, “Gina… every time you go shopping you should come home and get rid of some old clothes that you don’t wear anymore.” This advice totally coincides with the 52 Bags In 52 Weeks resolution!! Thanks Mom— I’m taking our words of wisdom and purging my closet after every shopping trip.

Last week I went shopping at The Gap….well, I couldn’t resist their 40% off Clearance sale –off already marked down prices…:) I scored an awesome v-neck sweater and a few pairs of gloves. You know what that means though… time to go home and get rid of a sweater I never wear. I found myself getting rid of more than just one sweater which was great. I now have two garbage bags stuffed full of clothes to take to Good Will.

This process has been like chicken soup to my soul. My mom also says, “having a clean home allows you to have a clear mind.” Again… she’s right!!  By getting rid of useless things in our house I’ve felt a weight lifted off my shoulders… as if I’m shedding pounds with every garbage bag of clutter I get rid of.

Even if you can’t commit to 52 Bags In 52 Weeks, just try one bag every other month. It feels so good to downsize !