1972 was a noteworthy year for many things that are still part of our lives 50 years later. Numerous puzzle pieces came together to form an interesting kaleidoscope of cultural events. Unlike today, most of them didn’t revolve around politics, half-truths, and bizarre conspiracy theories. If you were around during that time, some of these things may bring a wistful smile of remembrance. If you weren’t there to witness it, read on to see what you missed.

Hollywood was on a roll, and contributed some landmark movies. We were treated to “The Godfather,” which is still regarded as one of the finest American films ever made. “The Poseidon Adventure” defined the all-star disaster movie, complete with soap opera elements and a top-ten pop song, in this case “The Morning After.” Martial arts master Bruce Lee may have been passed over for the lead in TV’s “Kung Fu,” but he made up for it on the big screen with “Fist of Fury” and “The Way of the Dragon.” “Last Tango in Paris” was a critical and commercial hit, but its controversial content nearly tanked Marlon Brando’s career, right before he refused the best actor Oscar for “The Godfather.” “Deliverance” was a career-maker for Burt Reynolds, and came on the heels of his infamous nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan magazine. And no, he didn’t play the character who was told to “Squeal like a pig!” That dubious distinction went to actor Ned Beatty, who got teased about it for the rest of his life.

It’s interesting to look at the top ten films and realize how we were spending our entertainment bucks. Besides “Godfather,” “Poseidon” and “Deliverance,” the other seven top grossers were “What’s Up, Doc?”, “Jeremiah Johnson,” “Cabaret,” “Deep Throat” (seriously!), “The Getaway,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” and “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).” In case you couldn’t tell, that last one was courtesy of Woody Allen, inspired by Dr. David Rubin’s bestseller. “Deep Throat” also had the distinction of ushering in what was labeled “porno chic,” basically moving adult films from seedy bookstores to theaters on Main Street.

The pop music world provided songs that are still fodder for oldies stations, class reunions, and the occasional beer commercial. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (Roberta Flack) was initially released in 1969 but didn’t find an audience until Clint Eastwood used it in his movie “Play Misty for Me.” It took home Grammy awards for both Song and Record of the Year. “American Pie” (Don McLean) is as much a pop quiz as a pop song, a musical riddle with veiled mentions of Elvis, Bob Dylan and other music icons. The song’s refrain—“The day the music died”—is a reference to the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper.

This year also gave us Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem “I Am Woman,” Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash, “Love Train” by the O’Jays, and Bette Midler’s breakout hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” The inspirational “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers topped the charts, along with Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” “Without You” (Harry Nilsson), and “Nights in White Satin” (The Moody Blues). For better or worse, ’72 introduced the pop group ABBA. Their name is an acronym for members Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid. Did you know it was also the name of a Swedish canned fish company?

Television continued to search for new ways to attract viewers. “Sanford and Son” debuted, where veteran nightclub comic Redd Foxx played a Black version of Archie Bunker. Speaking of which, the “All in the Family” spinoff “Maude” starred Broadway actress Beatrice Arthur as an outspoken feminist. The show used dark humor to take on taboo sit-com topics like alcoholism, domestic violence, infidelity and unplanned pregnancy. “The Bob Newhart Show” gave the popular stand-up comedian a new audience, while “The Waltons” provided a down-home family contrast to the turmoil in the world. Cable network Home Box Office began broadcasting that year. For the first nine years it was available, HBO provided only about nine hours of programming a day, until Showtime came along and offered a 24-hour schedule.

In September of that year, audience members were invited to “Come on down!” for the first time with the reboot of “The Price is Right,” still the longest-running TV game show in history. “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” permanently relocated from NYC to LA (actually Burbank), where it would remain until 2014. In keeping with the adage “crime doesn’t pay,” more than half of the weekly network primetime schedule consisted of private eye and police dramas. The venerable children’s program “Captain Kangaroo” aired its 5000th episode, and the Korean war comedy “M*A*S*H” debuted. As all good things must come to an end, the beloved sit-com “Bewitched” lost its magic after eight seasons, when it was scheduled against “All in the Family,” then the most-watched show on TV.

Do you have a drip coffee maker or Keurig in your kitchen? You can trace its origins back to 1972, when a new home appliance called Mr. Coffee hit the market. They hired baseball legend Joe DiMaggio to be the on-air pitchman, despite his preference for instant Sanka. Have you ever served Egg Beaters for breakfast? The 99-percent egg white product that was intended to reduce cholesterol first became available that year. Also introduced was the Honda Civic, a sub-compact auto which turned a company best known for motorcycles into a car brand. Sales of the fuel-efficient import soared as the price of gasoline hit then-record highs. To put that in perspective, it was $.36 a gallon in 1972. Those were the days…

Pong, the first arcade video game from Atari, let players imagine what it was like to play table tennis without actually holding a paddle. On the real tennis court, yellow tennis balls were introduced. Research showed that the bright yellow color was more visible on TV than the traditional white variety. This was also the year we first heard George Carlin’s comedy routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” I can’t say them here, either!

How many of these do you remember: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” (from an Alka-Seltzer commercial); “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” the United Negro College Fund slogan famously mangled later by Vice President Dan Quayle as “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind”; Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem’s New York magazine spinoff, which she originally considered naming Sisters or Bimbo; Carnival Cruise Line, which started off with one ship and enough fuel to make it from Miami to San Juan, but not back; the unanimous passage of the Equal Rights Amendment; and the popular children’s book “Watership Down,” conceived by Richard Adams for his two daughters while on a long family car trip.

Speaking of literature, you can tell a lot about society by what people read. The top selling book that year, according to Publisher’s Weekly, was “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach. Other bestsellers included “The Odessa File” and “The Day of the Jackal” (both by Frederick Forsyth), “The Winds of War” (Herman Wouk), “The Word” (Irving Wallace), “My Name is Asher Lev” (Chaim Potok), “Wheels” (Arthur Hailey), and “Semi-Tough” (Dan Jenkins).

Of note is that a second-rate self-help book with crude illustrations and the titillating title “The Joy of Sex” spent 11 weeks atop the NYT bestsellers list. Other popular books that year included “The Terminal Man,” “Elephants Can Remember,” “The Scarlet Ruse,” “All Creatures Great and Small,” “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “The Stepford Wives,” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

I wonder what people will remember about us in 50 years?

On the third of June I was sat in front of my PC, wrestling with edits from a recently completed chapter. The document itself was roughly 23,000 words of a developing idea: a WIP I’m currently calling Seagulls from Hell.

The seagulls in my story had just been getting frisky. They’d done something that only the naughtiest seagulls in the world would be likely to do. And I felt as though the story was progressing in exactly the right direction.

SMASHCUT TO BLACK.

The screen died, as did every other electronic device in the house. The silence was sudden, eerie and inescapable. “Powercut,” I muttered. I smiled because I didn’t know those were still a thing. Deciding I was probably wrong I checked the fuse box to see if the safety switch had been activated.

A neighbour came to tell me his daughter had been on the phone to the electricity company and they expected to have the power back up by 9.00pm. I glanced at my PC monitor to see what the time was then, and realised the PC monitor wasn’t working because of the powercut.

It transpired I had two hours so I elected to use that time wisely. My desk had been buried under a mountain of paperwork whilst I went through the process of marking dissertations and exam scripts. I figured it was time to give the office a little TLC. I finished the desk swiftly, cleaned a couple of windows, put away some laundry that had been waiting on me and then read a paperback.
The lights came back on without any ceremony and I sighed with a little relief, switched my PC on and tried to remember where I’d been up to with my Seagulls from Hell.

An error box appeared claiming I was trying access unreadable content. I thought, if this is a criticism of my writing style, Microsoft Word have suddenly become brutal and more than a little hurtful. The error box gave me options to try and, like the well-trained Pavlovian rat that I am, I installed devices that were guaranteed to open my unreadable file and patiently tried each one.
I’m exaggerating a little when I use the word ‘patiently’. The truth is there was a lead weight in my stomach and the idea that I’d lost 23,000 words was making me sweat like a priest in a playground. None of the software downloads worked and, with rising desperation I tried one new fresh alternative after another. When I finally managed to get the corrupted document open the contents were nothing but hieroglyphics and gibberish.

It’s no exaggeration to say I was on the verge of tears.

By a strange coincidence, a pop-up box on my laptop asked me for feedback, wanting to know how likely I would be to recommend Word for Windows. My response was: “Since Word for Windows has just crashed and lost 23,000 words of a story I was writing, I think it’s highly unlikely that I’d recommend this product to someone unless I hate their f***ing guts.”

Then my wife came to the rescue. She was calm, patient and just what I needed. I had no backups of Seagulls from Hell. With it being stored on a cloud, I wasn’t even sure I had a copy of the damned file. But she went to the corrupt file and managed to go through the version history. By the time she’d finished her magical computer shenanigans, I was looking at all 23,000 words of my original story. I was still on the verge of tears, but this time they were tears of relief.

And I mention this as a cautionary tale for any writers who are reading this. To be safe, and not have to worry that you’re going to lose a huge chunk of valuable data, you’ve got two options: either regularly back up, or marry someone f***ing awesome like my wife, Tracy.

Scriptwriters have long used novels and short stories as the basis for their work, for both movies and TV shows. I suppose good ideas are hard to come by in Hollywood, so why not poach someone else’s blood, sweat and tears, right? And who among us hasn’t daydreamed about our book being turned into a blockbuster film or Netflix series? In their defense, there are only a dozen or so original plots in the world anyway, and they’ve all been used.

I became a film buff when I was a kid and if the movie was based on a book, I’d usually read it afterward. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that in most cases, the two had little resemblance to each other! These changes were often minor, usually because the book was long or contained mature content, but it made me curious as to how often that happened, and what the results were.

“Double Indemnity” was a bestselling novel by James M. Cain, a cynical tale of greed fueled by lust. Naturally, that called for a movie version to cash in on its popularity. The screenwriters apparently thought Cain hadn’t done his job correctly, because they re-arranged pieces of the plot. The result was a classic film noir that still holds up today. Even Cain grudgingly admitted that Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler did an okay job with their adaptation.

Speaking of Chandler, his breakthrough murder mystery “The Big Sleep” had Hollywood blockbuster stamped all over it. It was the second on-screen pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and Bogart forged the template for every cynical private eye that followed. It’s an entertaining film because of the chemistry between the two stars but unfortunately, you’re left scratching your head at the end and asking “So who did it? And why?” At one point, the writers even consulted Chandler for an answer, but he said he didn’t know. His lack of interest could be because he wasn’t asked to adapt his own novel, and probably didn’t care.

A lot of Ernest Hemingway’s stories made it to the screen, with mixed results. He claimed not to have liked most of them, with two exceptions. The first ten minutes of “The Killers” pretty much copied his short story word for word. When the plot veered into uncovering the motive for the murder, Hemingway stopped watching. He also enjoyed “For Whom the Bell Tolls” because it starred Gary Cooper, whom Hemingway had envisioned when he wrote the book.

He had reservations about another adaptation, “To Have and Have Not.” Hemingway felt that it was the worst book he ever wrote and bet filmmaker Howard Hawks that he couldn’t make a decent movie out of it. He was proved wrong. Of course, the writers only kept the title, changed the names of the characters and basically made it into a carbon copy of “Casablanca,” but who cared? It also helped that it was the first on-screen teaming of Bogart and Bacall (in her film debut), and the heat between the two radiated from the screen. They were married shortly after the film was completed.

There have been some noteworthy exceptions. The first few James Bond films stayed true to Ian Fleming’s novels, especially “From Russia with Love.” “The Hound of the Baskervilles” with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes is very close to Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure. “The Godfather” is another example, because Mario Puzo co-wrote the screenplay. “The Maltese Falcon” is faithful to Dashiell Hammett’s book due to screenwriter John Huston lifting scenes and dialogue directly from it.

Bringing James Jones’ World War II epic “From Here to Eternity” to the screen was no easy task. It’s a massive book and Jones didn’t pull any punches in his unflattering portrayal of the United States Army. The book was controversial because of raw language, sex, violence, racial slurs, the primary love interest is a prostitute, and one of the soldiers is gay-for-pay. Somehow, they managed to clean it up and get it past the censors in 1953, and it won a ton of awards.

Several of Donald E. Westlake’s crime capers were turned into entertaining movies, particularly “The Hot Rock,” “The Organization” and “The Split.” When he sold the rights to any of his stories featuring a career criminal named Parker, however, he refused to let the producers use the name Parker unless they bought the entire series, which no one was willing to do. His Parker story “The Hunter” has been filmed twice, as “Point Blank” (with Lee Marvin playing Walker), and “Payback” (with Mel Gibson as Porter). Most of Westlake’s film adaptations retained the personality and nuances of his characters.

Elmore Leonard didn’t fare too well in the true-to-the-source department. While I enjoyed “Get Shorty,” I looked for comparisons to the book but couldn’t find very many. I noticed the same thing with some of Mickey Spillane’s filmed adventures. “Kiss Me Deadly” is a terrific movie, but many of the book’s characters appeared in name only. Nelson DeMille’s “The General’s Daughter” was hard to put down once I began reading it, but I didn’t have that problem with the film version. Robert B. Parker did better with his Spenser series because he took an active role in the development.

Perhaps the low point in book-to-screen adaptations was “The Green Berets” (1967), with John Wayne. Robin Moore’s novel was a factual, non-political story about the elite military unit fighting in Viet Nam. What emerged onscreen was a piece of propaganda designed to sell the public on Wayne’s firm belief that the war was actually good for America. Maybe he thought he was still making those WWII movies where he single-handedly defeated the Axis of Evil.

Pass the popcorn!

by Ashley Lister

“I’d rather have a cup of tea and a slice of cake than do all of that sweaty stuff.”

It was a comment that really pissed me off. And you can tell that I’m really pissed off because I don’t usually end sentences with prepositions.

I don’t mind constructive criticism. For example, being told that characters in a novel I’ve created are unlikeable is often justified: sometimes I write about people who are unlikeable. When someone told me they didn’t like an abrupt ending to one of my stories, I fully agreed. A longer ending would have been more satisfying. Admittedly, it would have involved padding and made the pacing drag, but it would have kept the characters alive for a little longer and that would have been a good thing.

But this comment, the comment about someone preferring a cup of tea and a slice of cake to ‘all of that sweaty stuff’ was fired at me as a direct challenge.
It happened because a colleague had been looking at Amazon and they’d seen my back catalogue (that’s not a euphemism). The colleague had mentioned it to someone else who cast a disdainful eye over the titles and then fixed me with their comment: “I’d rather have a cup of tea and a slice of cake than do all of that sweaty stuff.”

Fine. If you prefer anodyne beverages and pastries to physical intimacy, then you’re perfectly free to make those choices. This is what free will means. Also, if you’re psyche is so severely fucking damaged that you refer to physical intimacy as ‘all of that sweaty stuff’ then, may I suggest, you have that slice of cake and cup of tea at a psychiatrist’s office whilst he discusses your innumerable problems and (hopefully) prescribes euthanasia?

The reason why it annoyed me was because there was so much unnecessary judgement in the comment. It was almost as though, because I’d written extensively on the subject, this person thought I was challenging their opinion on sex and sexuality.

The truth is, I’m a relatively private person. I’ve written several erotic titles and, if you enjoy reading erotica, I think you’ll like my work. However, for those who don’t enjoy erotica, I’m fairly sure they won’t enjoy my back catalogue and I won’t try to force my work on those individuals.

But, whilst I’m not going to push my work on people who don’t want to read it, I don’t have to listen to asinine quips from people who describe sex as ‘all of that sweaty stuff’. And, if someone genuinely prefers tea and cake to physical intimacy, I don’t think their opinion on erotica is worthy of note.

The plot’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the arousal of the king…” (or something to that effect)

Scheherezade
#BenjaminsMangledMisquotations

I’d like to, every so often, get up on my soapbox and just go off on some random musings about the craft of writing in general and, more specifically, the craft of writing porn. While I admit an enormous amount of smutty writing out there is gawdawful, I also firmly believe that there is a lot of quality porn to be enjoyed, as well. In my humble opinion as a non-professional purveyor and connoisseur of porn of all kinds, one of the differences between the dreck and the good stuff can be found in the consideration the smut-monger puts into the craft itself.

One of the elements of that craft is plot.

It’s a cruel truth that the enormous majority of bad porn out there boils any notion of “plot” down to some version of “insert tab A into slot B, repeat as necessary.” The classic example is the sort of stories found in Penthouse Forum and the like, and which is even more easily found these days on the internet.

I wouldn’t dream of inducing any urge to doze off by dissecting any of the dozens of dictionary meanings of the word, “plot.” For purposes of this discussion, however, this is how I’d like to think of the word.

“Plot” is one of those quirky words that can mean its own opposite. The old English term originally creating a plan or map outlining boundaries of land and then came to refer to the tract of land itself, as well. “I can plot that plot for you” is the same as saying, “I can map that land for you.”

That quirky distinction can also be broadened and kept in mind when crafting a story, as well. From one perspective, the plot is the end result. The goal. The bottom line. The ultimate success or failure of the cunning master plan, either of the storyteller or the story. From the other perspective, the plot is the plan to get to the execution of the end result.

Or, if you want to get all Julia Cameron/Natalie Goldberg about it, plot is the map to get the reader through the writer’s world. The plot ends where the writer chooses to end it. If the writher chooses to continue allowing a tour of his or her world, the plot continues. If not, “The End” and on to the next story.

In any case, it’s a true journey, and not just a random bumper-car ride in an enclosed area.

In my humble opinion, one of the many, many, many things that makes a connoisseur and purveyor of porn such as myself a real snob is the fact that I can get pornographic stories anywhere. Literally, anywhere. And they all have the same “plot,” or rather, “sort of plot,” that comes down to something as simple as, “Insert tab A into Slot B, repeat as necessary,” or some variation thereof.

“Although I love your magazine, I never thought those stories you publish were real until this one time…”

Bleah.

So, if we all want our smut to be a cut above the rest, (and if we are all HERE at THIS website, that’s EXACTLY what we want), let’s consider a few elements of plot.

E.M. Forster said, “The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.” Put another way, “The king had a lover and the queen had a lover is an erotic story. The king had a lover and the queen had a lover and they happened to be the same person is an erotic plot.” Which sounds like a more interesting way to get aroused?

Okay, J.T., you may be saying. That sounds easy enough. How can you come up with a decent plot for an erotic story?

Good question. Let’s back up a bit. How can one come up with a decent plot for a story in general? Anyone who’s ever spent any time studying the craft of writing can think of several reference books off the top of his or her head that might offer plot ideas. There are even more websites that make the same sorts of offers.

One famous text called, The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti documents thirty-six, count ‘em, thirty-six distinctive dramatic or plot situations, in astonishing detail with copious references. A brief (very brief) summary of one such situation.

TWENTY-THIRD SITUATION: Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones

(The Hero; the Beloved Victim; the Necessity for the Sacrifice).

The entry goes on to list several examples of literature including Aeschylus, Sophocles, and on and on and on.

Mind-numbing, is it not? Not to be recommended.

Of course, part of the point is that there are certain plots that are more or less universal; that can be found in most, if not in virtually all forms of storytelling, erotic or not.

Getting back to what Mr. Forster said, whether one says there are ten master plots or twenty or thirty-six (!) they all seem to break down to one central idea.

Something Different Happens.

The queen didn’t just die. Everybody dies. The queen died of grief. Something Different Happened.

A randy young kid goes out with his buds like he does every night, getting into the same kind of trouble every night, and then Something Different Happens and he meets the girl of his dreams who just happens to be from the wrong side of the tracks.

A privileged young man gets to judge a beauty contest, but Something Different Happens and the contestants are goddesses and the winner promises him the wife of the King of Sparta as his prize.

A passionate young bride’s wedded bliss with her husband is cut short because of his war injury. She expects to live the rest of her life like any other soldier’s wife and buck up under her frustration but Something Different Happens and she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the gamekeeper.

To me, just one more humble purveyor and connoisseur of erotica, the difference between the same old stroke tale and a story worth reading comes down to the sense that something different is happening. Something out of the sexual ordinary.

At this point, the Devil’s Advocate in my head is jumping up and screaming, “But what about Character? You haven’t discussed character!”

Indeed I haven’t, which I plan to address soon. For the time being, I want to just throw out there a few thoughts.

For anyone writing or reading an erotic story, what is something different that would make you want to continue doing so?