Judy Blume Goes to Hollywood With Her Books

I blogged about author Judy Blume back in early June 2012 (catch my post HERE). At the time, she was still very interested in censorship which was a central focus of her early career. But movies and television shows of her work wasn't really on her radar.  Well, there was news in mid-October 2018 that Judy Blume is finally letting Hollywood have a crack at one of her most iconic works. That work is the book "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret". The prolific author (who has published 30 books), just turned 80 in February 2018, and has famously been opposed to screen adaptations of her works, with just two exceptions: the 1978 TV movie adaptation of "Forever", and the 2012 adaptation of "Tiger Eyes", both of which were, in the words of Vanity Fair journalist Yohana Desta "largely forgettable", which may explain her reluctance to try it again.

Photo: Getty Images

As per reporting from Deadline , the author has given director Kelly Fremon Craig and producer James L. Brooks the green light to adapt "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" about a young girl navigating puberty and the pains of growing up into a movie. Fremon Craig will write and direct the adaptation; Brooks will produce under his Gracie Films banner.

This marks the first time Judy Blume has ever granted the movie rights to her novel. But back in August 2018, the author herself Tweeted that she had a change of heart, and that she was taking meetings in Los Angeles to see which of her books could potentially be made into films or TV series.

So which of my books, kids and/or adult would you want to see adapted for series or movie? I ask because I’m in LA meeting with many talented people. I think the time has come.

— Judy Blume (@judyblume) August 2, 2018

The initial winner of a movie deal was "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" although its possible others will be coming, too -- either in movie form, or television (or some combination). The book "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" was originally published back in 1970 as a young adult novel, but it meant much more to an entire generation of preadolescent girls looking for answers and a sense they weren't alone as childhood turned into a tumultuous something else. At that time, books were available for young people, while parents were getting divorced and mothers entered the workforce en masse, leaving many kids of that era alone. The subject matter might seem tame by today's standards, but it stood alone in its time, and there were even calls over the years for it to be banned from libraries. It is also among Time's list of the top 100 fiction books written in English since 1923.

The issues addressed in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" were real problems girls of that era couldn't really discuss with anyone: when would they reach puberty and get their periods? Should they pad their bras, and what to do about the boys they were crushing on? Margaret is a sixth grader who moves from New York City to Farbrook, New Jersey (the character Peter Hatcher and his family from the book "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" also move to suburban Princeton, New Jersey from NYC in the sequel "Superfudge". Ms. Blume herself is from New Jersey, although she spent several years as a child living in Miami, Florida). Anyway, her character Margaret is raised by a religiously indifferent Christian mother and Jewish father, she prays to a God she imagines is watching over her. In addition to a search for faith, she is curious about upcoming changes in her own body and forms a secret club with four other girls where they discuss subjects like boys, bras, and periods.

Judy Blume, of course, wrote far more books than ones aimed exclusively at adolescent girls, even if those were among her bestsellers. As noted, her seminal book "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" spoke to young boys (about my age; I was in third grade when it was released) about the trials of living with a younger "baby" brother who sucks all of the attention and air out of a room because he's younger, cuter child proved that she could reach a range of children's ages with her works.

As far as the soon-to-be-made-into-a-movie "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", over the years Judy Blume has offered a lot of comments (see her blog post for more) about how that particular book was updated to reflect how just months after the book was released, old sanitary belts women of that era used became obsolete when adhesive strip pads hit the market, and it was an editor in the UK who suggested that Margaret should trade in those belts and pads for the new, more friendly feminine products. Judy Blume herself never dreamed it was even possible to revise a book that had already been published to reflect changes in the market for feminine sanitary products.

She has gone on the record as saying that she does not want to see her characters age. She told NPR (see https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/584561888/at-80-judy-blume-reflects-on-feminism-metoo-and-letting-margaret-grow-up for reference):

"I don't want to rewrite anything. My characters are who they are. For years, people have written and asked me to let Margaret go through menopause. And it's like, "Hey guys! Margaret is 12 and she is going to stay 12. That's who she is." No, I don't want to rewrite any of them."

That said, we CAN expect to see her timeless characters brought to life in movie format soon. However, I would say that Ms. Blume herself is likely applying the lessons she learned from her early experience, and now she's able to chose producers and people to produce her works (perhaps even having more of a say in casting, sets, etc.) that SHE wants to work with, which means the latest iteration of Judy Blume books-turned-films are likely to be somewhat different than her initial experiences.

While I won't necessarily be waiting for the release of "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", I will wait until we see a "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" and "Superfudge" or one of the two later sequels (which I had outgrown by the time of their release; besides, instead of being about older brother Peter, they were about the younger brother Fudge) film or TV show made. Still, I wonder if now that I've had 40 more years of life behind me if my recollections and emotions with her books will be the same, or whether others will have similar experiences?  We shall find out soon enough!

See also:

http://judyblume.com/

https://judyblumeofficial.tumblr.com/

G&L Pulp Fiction: Effort to Document Obscure Items from U.S. Cultural History

In honor of Pride month, this post is dedicated to something that nearly became lost to history (fortunately, it hasn't been lost).  Although I've addressed the topic of how porn went mainstream (catch a previous post by visiting http://hgm.sstrumello.com/2013/03/documenting-porns-path-to-becoming_11.html), there's a tendency to think of porn mainly as a visual medium, hence literary porn is sometimes overlooked or forgotten.  But stories and novels depicting erotic behavior and intended to cause sexual excitement are very much part of the category.

Indeed, motion picture erotica basically hit the mainstream when "Deep Throat" premiered on June 12, 1972, but unlike a lot of porn today, there was an actual story and a script that existed in porn of that era.  Most had story lines (however weak) intended merely to introduce some sexual activity (for example, "Deep Throat's" premise was that Linda Lovelace's clitoris was located in a place other than the normal, biological location; it was discovered to be deep inside of her throat, hence the story line follows that premise), nevertheless, much of the early genre made a basic effort to have some kind of story, not simply a film of people having sex.

As a result of a series of different court cases, by the mid-1960's the U.S. Postal Service could no longer interdict books that contained homosexuality.  By the early 1970's, another legal challenge emerged to the inconsistently-applied American obscenity laws (notably Miller v. California, which was a 1973 Supreme Court decision which redefined the legal definition of obscenity from being "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" which effectively narrowed prior restrictions used to persecute purveyors of "adult" materials not erotic in nature), and that opened the doors to erotica of all types.

Although photo magazines and movies were considered the primary medium for porn, print publishing also had a presence in the form of sexually-explicit fiction novels better known as "pulps".  The term "pulp" originates from the cheap paperback books of the latter half of the 20th century which were printed on cheap "pulp" paper and published as escapist fiction for the general entertainment of mass audiences.

Sex "pulps" took that segment of the publishing industry in a rather different direction, aimed at sexual arousal of the reader.  This was before the internet made it easy for anyone to publish adult stories online.  Paperback pulp porn novels (consisting of both hetero and homo) were often sold side-by-side with porn magazines, although they were also semi-discreetly sold in drugstores and random magazine stands back in the mid-1950's through the late-1970's.  These books were produced quickly and cheaply by sketchy imprints that were often opened just for the purpose of releasing a few titles, then dissolved before authorities could catch up with them.  The gay pulp genre, as it turns out, were dominated by a handful of paperback book publishers, many now known to have been operated by single a Chicago-based publisher which found a very lucrative niche with suggestive titles and covers, even if the published content inside was unrelated to the title or cover.

Author Michael Bronski, who in 2003 published the book "Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps" (see https://www.amazon.com/Pulp-Friction-Uncovering-Golden-Pulps/dp/0312252676 for more) says the first general mass-market paperback book to be published was Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth" back in 1939.  He said during World War II, soldiers had access to government-issued paperback books that supplied them with endless hours of topics to read about while waiting for action on the front-line. After the war was over, there was a boom in paperback publishing as a response to the now-growing demand for fiction that was realistic, edgier and more adventurous.

Most of the G&L pulps that have been re-discovered in an effort to catalogue, archive and retain them were found in garage sales, on eBay, a few porn shops' going-out-business liquidation sales, and even old homes that were sold.  The archives that have so far been documented focus mainly on the first 16 years of publishing by the organization that was run by William Hamling known informally as vintage Greenleaf Classics.  We now know that a man named Earl Kemp was editor at Greenleaf Classics Publishing from 1959 through 1973, and a man named Robert Bonfils was a cover artist during that same period.  During that time, thousands of titles were published within multiple series or lines. The term "imprint" is used for those series or lines; the books had miscellaneous publisher names including Beacon, Nightstand, Companion, Corinth, Pleasure Reader, French Line and others.  The number of titles published peaked during 1969 and 1972.

New Digital Archive

A relatively new, digital archive currently now catalogs some 3,500 titles in 25 different imprints.  All told, its known to have identified some 4,300 titles (also, a few titles were re-run under different titles with different cover art).  Evidently, the company had an organized numbering system which has been identified and is now understood, and most titles followed a fairly specific format in terms of book content; typically each chapter contained a vivid sex scene.  The content of each book is being digitized and at least a handful have been re-published in the modern era and can now be purchased on Amazon.com, perhaps the entire library can someday be available as MOD (manufacture on-demand) content, which as I understand it is still relatively new.

Regarding print-on-demand technology, as noted, its fairly new, but its similar to the technology which now also enables DVD's which have been digitized to be produced on-demand.  Amazon's DVD manufacture on-demand (MOD) gets more press coverage, but it relies upon the underlying manufacturing capacity of Warner Home Video manufacture-on-demand which began in 2009 (also behind the large Warner Archive Collection).  In essence, once a book or movie is properly formatted, the digitized computer files can then be printed on-demand in the form of books or DVD's.  However, particularly in the video space, content owners or managers are really marketing streaming since nothing must be manufactured or mailed to a purchaser.

Anyway, the new publisher known as 120 Days Books run by Maitland McDonagh is a small press that has reprinted a few of the Hamling/Greenleaf titles including "Night of the Sadist" and "Demon's Coronation" and soon "Gay Cruise".  The re-printed titles are sold on Amazon.com.

A handful of the G&L pulp book authors and/or artists who created cover artwork for Greenleaf were also able to be identified and interviewed (before a few, unfortunately, passed away).  But the interviews with those individuals answered some important questions about the underlying business that was done largely on the "down-low" before that term even existed.  In those days, it was a necessity to avoid law-enforcement from dismantling an otherwise law-abiding publishing business serving a neglected "niche" market.

We now know that the publisher, Mr. Hamling, kept First Amendment lawyer Stanley Fleishman, busy defending the right to publish and distribute erotic fiction in the many obscenity prosecutions that were mounted to try and suppress Greenleaf Classics. The winning results in those trials helped establish the case law that Americans enjoy now, and many publishers and movie producers continue to rely on today.  They did not win every trial, but the trial record helped establish an American right to publish (and consume) such materials that many now take for granted.

Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover each had issues with sexuality that was at odds with their public face. They took it personally that Greenleaf Classics sex novels were even being published. They used their position and power to repeatedly go after the Hamling organization.  Eventually the Feds won one.  Hamling and editor Earl Kemp, were however, convicted of "obscenity" in federal court and were forced out of the business in 1974 (their convictions were for mailing a promotional brochure about a book, not for the book itself).

Gay and lesbian sex pulps were cheap, and intended to be read and discarded.  Many people did just that, so there's no telling exactly how many ended up in landfills.  However, traditionally, Greenleaf Classics books were actively suppressed by book collectors. Some thrift stores threw donated copies into the dumpster.  Many used book stores wouldn't buy them for resale.  Estates took them to the landfill before the sale.  This means that searching for these books has been more work and a rather different experience than building a collection of say, the first 500 vintage Bantam paperbacks.  The primary method of acquisition has been active book scouting in every flea market and used book store in every city ever visited.  The tricky moment in searching for vintage Greenleaf books is how to ask about sex novels without appearing too creepy.

To some extent, the assembly of a coherent cataloging of these books has involved a few very dedicated people with an interest in the project.  Many aren't even gay or lesbian, but still found the work very interesting.  Notably, publisher and film scholar, Maitland McDonagh, a straight woman, says these books themselves provide a rare glimpse in to a world that was largely kept secret out of fear and shame.

"They're not poking fun at what they're describing," she explained. "Some of them are funny and humorous but they take their subject as seriously as if they were mainstream books." Given the insight these "stroke books" provide into gay life of another era, she began to view them and their preservation as a way of honoring a past that has long been hidden to all but a select few.  Fortunately, she has found others to work with who are also interested, albeit for different reasons.

Several sites emerged to showcase the vivid artwork that graced the covers of gay pulp books.  While the book content may not have been true gay or lesbian pulp, covers featuring scantily-clad women or semi-nude men on the cover with an identifiable publisher name made them sufficient to appear on the lesbian-themed http://www.strangesisters.com or its gay male counterpart http://www.gayontherange.com websites.

The artwork doesn't always mean the content of the classic gay pulp books is online (yet).  But a handful of titles have since been reprinted (see http://greenleaf-classics-books.com/vintage/ for the site that's now seriously archiving these books, and another organization has reprinted a few titles at http://120daysbooks.blogspot.com/2015/.  Others are taking the subject of these books to an audio podcast in which the podcasters read the contents of a gay pulp book aloud to listeners (each podcast reads a chapter from one of the Greeleaf Classics gay pulp fiction novels), visit http://gaypulp.podomatic.com for more on the podcast.

An excerpt from one these podcasts (if you're inclined to listen) can be listened to below, or by visiting Summer in Sodom, Chapter 14, "Gay Whore":



Erotic pulp novels (both straight and gay) were largely a function of the era from the mid-1950's to the early-1980's before cable television, VCR's and subsequently, DVD's and then later, broadband internet became so pervasive.  G&L pulps were part of a larger erotic narrative pulp genre that also proliferated during that era.  But because this sub-genre was very actively suppressed, its since become very lucrative to collectors.  Although no one envisions a return to the day of erotic pulp novels being sold in newsstands, drugstores, and supermarkets around the country, for anyone old enough to remember seeing, buying or reading any these books, the emergence of the internet may just restore a hidden part of pop-culture (admittedly, a somewhat sleazier part of pop-culture) that until quite recently, might have been lost forever.

The full list of titles in the collection are based on the fact that most book titles were published at the back of each of these books (with headlines saying something along the lines of: "If you enjoyed reading this, you might also be interested in reading the following").  While most titles have been cataloged, the cover artwork scanned and content in the process of being digitized, the entirety of the collection is still very much a work in-process.  Notably, a few titles are identified but copies of those particular books have yet to be located.

For anyone interested in exploring this topic further, its quite interesting.  Below is a list of some relevant links (including some actual news articles from publications like Rolling Stone) to explore.

http://greenleaf-classics-books.com/

http://www.strangesisters.com

http://www.gayontherange.com

http://gaypulp.podomatic.com

https://www.gaycitynews.nyc/stories/2015/1/w20146-pulped-2015-01-08.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/one-publisher-looks-to-save-gay-stroke-books-of-the-1970s-w491704

https://www.queerty.com/30-hilarious-gay-pulp-fiction-covers-yesterqueer-2016050

http://www.newnownext.com/scared-stiff-vintage-gay-pulp-novels-come-out-of-the-closet/10/2016/

http://120daysofsodomy-vintagegaypulp.blogspot.com/

http://www.newnownext.com/gay-pulp-novels-podcast/07/2017/

http://bookscans.com/Publishers/sleaze/sleaze25.htm

http://greenleaf-classics-books.com/vintage/

http://120daysbooks.blogspot.com/

http://120daysofsodomy-vintagegaypulp.blogspot.com/

http://efanzines.com/EK/eI2/index.htm

https://www.them.us/story/lesbian-pulp-fiction

https://web.archive.org/web/20161027022021/http://www.babaluma.net/pulps/pulps.html

Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Tech

Today's post is a bit unusual for several reasons.  First, it centers on a podcast rather than a TV clip, article, movie or music from a genuine media outlet (like a printed newspaper or magazine).  These days, the number of new online newspapers and magazines has exploded, although not all are legitimate businesses, many are simply mining for web clickbait and may ultimately spam people willing to provide their email addresses.  But the evolving media market is a key part of this story.  My main reservation is that the podcast itself comes from a conservative think tank, rather than a genuine media outlet, so I had some reservations because many such organizations are proven to promote known falsehoods.  But upon listening to the discussion in this podcast, I feel pretty comfortable sharing it.

The origins begin with a new book that will be released on August 14, 2018 entitled "Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millennials" by Matthew Hennessey (available for purchase on August 14, 2018 at Amazon.com, see http://amzn.to/2D1GqPt for detail).  There is a podcast at the end of this post which I am sharing because its interesting and not overtly partisan in nature in spite of coming from a conservative think tank.

Note that the book's author, Mr. Hennessey, is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, which has been owned by Australian immigrant Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation since 2007.  The Murdoch purchase ended a century of Bancroft-family ownership at Dow Jones & Co. (the WSJ publisher) and it put the premier U.S. business newspaper directly into Murdoch's very partisan media oversight, although its worth acknowledging that Dow Jones has struggled financially since being acquired by News Corp.  The difficulty has more to do with a rapidly changing media landscape than the political leanings of its primary owner.  The new media landscape includes adept outlets including startups like Business Insider which began in 2009, plus traditional newspapers like the UK's Financial Times which have expanded into the U.S., not to mention Bloomberg's ubiquitous terminals at firms all over Wall Street which have rendered the WSJ far less important (and less relevant) than traditional newspapers are, with their less frequently updated publishing schedules.

Immigrant Rupert Murdoch's Struggle to Keep Up With Tech

Indeed, the global television and entertainment conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family renamed its entertainment assets 21st Century Fox (including its TV network and movie studio among other things) in 2013, but surprisingly, on December 14, 2017, it announced (see http://politi.co/2qM81PC for the news) that The Walt Disney Co. had struck a deal valued at $52.4 billion to acquire most of the Hollywood holdings of 21st Century Fox.  All that remains of the original conglomerate he created is what he calls "the new Fox" — essentially, Fox News, Fox Business Network, the national Fox sports networks, his broadcast network and a some local stations.  None of "the new Fox" are considered leaders in breaking important news, and in spite of being quite profitable, they have also won fewer prestigious journalism awards such as Pulitzer's compared to their biggest rivals.  Instead, Murdoch's model has been to use media to advance his particular view of conservatism, often by perpetuating biases of his viewers in order to secure their political votes, rather than legitimate news coverage.

Anyway, in Murdoch's core news business, Rupert Murdoch made a number of atypical missteps since taking control of the WSJ, including a completely incoherent pricing strategy for the newspaper itself (aggressive and unjustified price increases among longtime subscribers, who started dumping the WSJ), a poorly-conceived and poorly-executed Weekend Journal that aimed to compete with the New York Times but which failed by most measures, and perhaps most importantly, rapid turnover of the valuable journalism staff of the WSJ, relying instead upon more freelance journalists without much loyalty to the news outlet they were doing work for, rather than the paid staff who had helped to made it such a great American news outlet to begin with.

About Demographic Groups, And Particularly Generation X

With all that said, this post isn't even a diatribe about about Rupert Murdoch's (un)ethical or even business failings, it's about demographics, specifically Generation X (or Gen X) being squeezed out by the loud and self-absorbed generations before and after it.

In spite of having personal reservations about City Journal, which is published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research — a conservative think-tank based in NYC, not too dissimilar from entities including the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute — I would just acknowledge that facts (something that the Heritage Foundation in particular seems to have run away from in recent years) should always be considered non-partisan, especially when it comes to demographic trends which are validated by U.S. Census Bureau data and is mandated to be collected by the U.S. Constitution.

I do not dismiss data simply because the source is from an entity whose political leanings are different from my own, although I will not blindly accept them, either (I do the same for more progressive sources) and all media consumers should do the same.

This particular podcast is one I am willing to share because the content is not especially political or partisan, rather it addressed the author's forthcoming book and some of the broader implications of demographics.  In this podcast, Mr. Hennessy discusses with Aaron Renn the fading of the Baby Boom generation, the rise of supposedly tech-savvy millennials (who did not build any of the tech they will be responsible for maintaining), and what he considers to be the challenge for those in-between, known as Generation X and potential implications in the future.

They discuss the fact that Gen X is sandwiched between two large demographic cohorts, and how those cohorts share some similarities in terms of size and the impact their size has on making them both more self-absorbed simply because of their raw numbers.  While some of Hennessey's assertions are more of a warning for his own generation (Gen X), particularly because younger Millennials seem very impatient in spite of their lacking relevant experience and old Boomers refuse to step down even though they really should because they are now too old to continue (especially in governance), the concern Hennessey seems to suggest is that Millennials don't view the world from the conservative perspective that 1980's sitcom "Family Ties" character Alex P. Keaton (played by actor-turned-star Michael J. Fox) is not viewed favorably by younger voters who now outnumber both Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

Gen X's Ability to Navigate Around Self-Absorbed Generations

In reality, Gen X is not especially conservative from a political perspective, with about one-third being registered Democrats, one-third being registered Republicans and one-third being independent voters.  Also, Gen X has proven itself to be fairly nimble in standing out rather than being swept away by much larger demographic cohort groups before and after them.  Its not that special, but it was a survival skill necessary for a group used to being overlooked, and that's a skill that neither Boomers nor Millennials posses.  It's also a huge credit to Gen X's ability to stand out in spite of the odds which the author doesn't appear to acknowledge.

While it's most likely that Gen X's tenure in political leadership will be short-lived due largely to Baby Boomer unwillingness to step aside and get out of the way, combined with overly-eager Millennials eager to take center stage, its also appropriate to acknowledge that the transition Generation X leadership might prove to be very, very valuable for the country due to several reasons.

As the generation who literally grew up with the computer, one can convincingly argue (successfully) that Gen Xers are the true "digital natives" (the 1983 movie "War Games" which starred a young Matthew Broderick is perhaps the best example) who also grew up in a time of analog television, radio, movies, media, etc. which means Gen Xers are therefore uniquely able to assess the benefits to each way of doing things, and they might more wisely choose a path that seamlessly blends traditional and new methods of doing things than their younger Millennial or older Boomer counterparts.

Beyond that, there's also a degree of maturity that Gen Xers can bring to policy discussions that has been sorely lacking from current Baby Boomer political leadership, which has become overtly partisan and less willing to compromise, which has always been a cornerstone of successful, good governance.  The selfish "my way or the highway" is a hallmark of Baby Boomer leadership in recent years, and its an utter failure in governance.

Also, as already noted, Gen X is neither conservative, nor liberal.  Overall, they are middle-of-the road, with roughly one-third registered as Democrats, one-third registered as Republicans, and the last third as "independents" who are not registered with either of the two major U.S. political parties.

Baby Boomer Ethos: We Don't Care About Fixing Social Security As Long As We Get Ours

There are a number of big challenges on the horizon that Baby Boomer lawmakers have simply refused to address, perhaps hoping to force their younger counterparts to deal with them instead.  One is the ballooning of people their age who are actually eligible to collect Social Security and Medicare.  Privatization is a favored solution offered by many conservatives, but that's really trying to transfer the problem to another party that can take blame for any Boomer failure, rather than a genuine fix.  It's a myth to say that the system will be bankrupt because that's a falsehood; and the numbers prove it.

Social Security Not (Yet) Bankrupt, But Giveaways to Higher-Income Earners Must Stop 

Social Security taxes are paid for by both employers and employees.  Yet for reasons that are unexplained, there is a mysterious cap to earnings that are taxed, which means that Social Security taxes are only paid until incomes reach $128,700 in 2018.  That means for every penny earned over $128,700, no Social Security taxes are paid into the system.  Admittedly, the maximum benefit someone can collect from the Social Security system is also capped, but its always been a tax, not an indemnity life insurance plan or investment.  I would add that the maximum earnings of $128,700 is not especially high, either.  Perhaps it was unthinkable that anyone could earn $128,700 in 1935 when it began, but the few, periodic increases have not kept pace with changes in the cost of living.  Today, that's not even considered a particularly high income level, especially in certain geographic regions of the country.

So the earnings cap for Social Security taxes can and should be increased to a higher level (or eliminated completely), the exact amount is what lawmakers really SHOULD be discussing, with a debate about what that amount should be and why.  We can also discuss whether there should be a certain level of income and/or assets that merit no longer being eligible to receive Social Security benefits.  Remember, its a program to keep the elderly who can no longer work from going hungry or homeless.  But should Rupert Murdoch be entitled to collect as much in Social Security and Medicare as an older widowed woman from Nebraska of modest means gets?  Does he really need or even deserve it?  After all, hasn't he received enough in tax benefits?

Yet Baby Boomer lawmakers have not had a single serious discussion of this matter even now that 10,000 Baby Boomers a day are going on the proverbial dole.  Yet rather than doing anything about the issue, Baby Boomer lawmakers still in office have kept kicking the proverbial can down the road for future American lawmakers to deal with.  The only issue for them is that the solutions future generations make may not necessarily be good for Baby Boomers.  That means middle-of-the-road solutions are arguably the best outcome for all parties involved, except the very wealthy (and the selfish).

Anyway, have a listen to this podcast below, or by visiting the following two links (one is the conservative think tank's "City Journal" magazine article on the author's forthcoming book, the other is the website for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research's podcast).  Although some of the narrative is speculative or uncertain (such as excessive technology use altering the way Millennials' brains process information), or what the priorities will need to be for the future leaders of America known as the Millennials) but most of the conversation is interesting and relatively on-point.  Certainly, there is a risk of cutting Gen X out of the discussion prematurely, which would be a mistake.  I did like the reference he makes to succession in the British Royal Family.

Whether Mr. Hennessey's prophecy is too worrisome is also a relevant subject to debate.  But I believe its an appropriate conversation for America to have.  Failure of society to do so could mean some very useful solutions are overlooked.

From the "City Journal" Magazine: Zero Hour for Generation X
https://www.city-journal.org/html/zero-hour-generation-x-15332.html

Podcast: Generation X, Millennials, and Technology
https://www.city-journal.org/html/generation-x-millennials-and-technology-15409.html

Gen X Author Claims Too Many Baby Boomers Are 'Sociopathic'

If you were born between 1945 and 1965, you are by definition a Baby Boomer whether you admit it or not (the exact start and finish of a generation is not universally defined, but the consensus is that each generation lasts about twenty years, though people at the beginning or end could likely fit into the generation that precedes or succeeds it).

Yet contrary to the Boomer-centric publishing industry (or television, radio, movies or any other media outlet within their control) of years past, today Baby Boomers are no longer most of the authors, readers or publishers anymore, which means that's no longer a Boomer pep rally as it previously was (indeed, the publishing industry is struggling somewhat these days, which means that today, publishers more likely make decisions on what to publish based on what will actually sell).  It began when a venture capitalist questioned why technology hadn't improved as fast as it did previously (leading to slow economic productivity growth, listen/see http://bit.ly/2imEfHQ for more detail), or the recession lasted longer and saw a weaker recovery, and all of his research suggested that Boomer behavior and the economic/political policies implemented under their watch was largely responsible.

In that environment, Bruce Cannon Gibney, who is a 40-something Gen Xer (he was born in 1976), has published a new book entitled "A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America".  He says the Boomer attitude of "Me first and damn the consequences" has been a disaster for the country.  In short, He posits that too many Boomers are selfish, lacking in empathy and financially irresponsible and its been a disaster for the U.S. economy.  Known as the "Me Generation," the Baby Boomers have long been described as self-interested, but never quite in such damning terms.

"My assertion isn't that all Boomers are sociopaths, but that a sufficiently large percentage of them behave in ways that appear to be sociopathic and because they're such a large generation ... any personality defects could easily translate into political dysfunction. I think that is what happened."

Suffice to say, Mr. Gibney's new book is making headlines not only because of the provocative title, but because he uses a lot of verifiable facts to validate his central thesis that as a whole, the Baby Boomer generation have some sociopathic tendencies, and they have undermined the prosperous, progressive America they were raised in.  He uses credible statistics to show how Baby Boomers have turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Bruce Cannon Gibney has also been getting a lot of angry mail since his new book, "A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America," came out in early March 2017.  Of course, a lot of that correspondence is still snail-mail paper letters, since Boomers tend not to e-mail as instinctively as subsequent generations do.  Still, he has wisely not published his own e-mail address, just in case.

There was an interesting video accompanying the typical news promoting a new book, which can be viewed below, or at http://ow.ly/CZKe309WwHa:


This Salon Talks Video was produced by Alexandra Clinton

Men's Journal had an interview with Mr. Gibney at https://bit.ly/2Vne7kQ which is worth reading. Also, the Boston Globe interviewed him which can be seen at http://bit.ly/2l9KXCA.

Similarly, WBUR, which is Boston's NPR news station had an equally interesting radio interview with him.  The central thesis is not Baby Boomer narcissism or sociopathy per se (he doesn’t claim to be a psychiatrist who can diagnose anyone), but the tendencies of the generation as a whole have failed to save for their own retirements as they should have, and are therefore are over-reliant upon their own children.  As proof, he notes that we see this in the national data based on cohort savings levels and national savings levels, for which there have been in significant declines in savings rates since the 1970's when the Baby Boomer generation first entered the workforce.

Beyond that, he also cites data that supports the claim that Boomers have largely failed to support public policies that maintained critical infrastructure on things like roads, airports, schools and the like, putting future generations at a disadvantage relative to the environment Boomers grew up in, which he claims is sociopathic behavior.

"I don't posit that all Boomers are sociopaths, just that a large fraction of them are," Mr. Gibney said.  "The study done by the National Institutes of Health speculated in the '80s that the consequences [of Boomer behavior] would get worse over time, and I think it has," said Gibney.

Raised in an era of seemingly unending economic prosperity with relatively permissive parents, and the first generation to grow up with a television, Baby Boomers developed an appetite for consumption and a lack of empathy for future generations that has resulted in unfortunate policy decisions, argues Mr. Gibney.

"These things conditioned the Boomers into some pretty unhelpful behaviors and the behaviors as a whole seem sociopathic," he said.

Not surprisingly, he also cites the Boomers' unprecedented divorce rates.  Mr. Gibney told WBUR:

"Prior generations did not divorce frequently, in substantial part because no-fault divorce wasn't around until '69. But the odd thing is that the Boomers actually have higher rates of divorce than even their children at comparable points in the marriage. So their rates of divorce are lower. And that's relevant not because divorce is a moral good or bad, per se, in any given situation, but because one of the key sociopathic indicators is an inability to form a lasting relationship, and I think divorce certainly falls into that category."

To listen to WBUR’s interview with Mr. Gibney, listen below, or visit http://wbur.fm/2mJId1d:


Washington, DC's WTOP Federal News Radio interviewed Bruce Cannon Gibney on April 5, 2017. That interview can be listened to below, or by visiting https://wtop.com/life-style/2017/04/13310521/:
 

Canada's MacLean's magazine covered it from a non-American perspective, which some have equated to being the equivalent the U.S. magazine Time or Britain's Economist, and that can be viewed at http://bit.ly/2m1nHvK.

"A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America" is an important work because it systematically dismantles many of the claims that Baby Boomers have made for the past several decades.  He also argues that several hallmarks that Boomers have attributed to themselves are simply them taking credit for the work of others.  He notes that it's time that we dispense with this meretricious Baby Boomer rebranding that's gone on.  For example, items Baby Boomers like to give themselves credit for, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not occur because Baby Boomers decided to protest, rather that legislation was passed into law by their parents.  He also notes that Brown v. Board of Education was not decided by 14-year-olds, and that would have been the oldest Baby Boomer at the time.  It was decided by nine old, white men on the U.S. Supreme Court. The Clean Air Act that was passed in 1963. Again, that's not a Boomer victory either.

Although his core thesis is negative, it's probably not completely unexpected.  Gen X has been told by Baby Boomers for its entire existence that there would never, ever be a generation as 'great' as the Baby Boom was (although now we have the Millennial generation which not only outnumbers Baby Boomers, but will eventually surpass them in votes, too).  Gen X was also force-fed Boomer music, movies and television for decades.  But keep in mind that Gen X fought Baby Boomers over our name, as many Boomers wanted to call Generation X (unoriginally) "Baby Busters", but we know how that turned out.  Similarly, Millennials followed the same path and rejected the labels "Gen Y" and "Boomer Babies" for a label that's better suited to them.  As a result, there is deep-seated resentment of the Baby Boomer generation, especially among the generations that follow.  As a result, they don't always write glowing endorsements that Baby Boomers have grown accustomed to.

Forbes does suggest that Gen X seems destined to assume political power in the not-too-distant future due to no other reason than demographic reality (see http://bit.ly/2n1HQ4d for the article), and Politico suggests (see http://politi.co/1K9zu1t for the article) that the country as a whole will likely be better off once Gen X assumes political power in Washington, DC.  But Boomers have been slow to relinquish power, perhaps to ensure that they keep policy benefiting them as long as possible.

Bruce Cannon Gibney does say "I do have hope [for the future]. Young people do seem to embrace an empathetic agenda, up to and including supporting senior entitlements, I think in part because they've been misled about it. They're certainly much more progressive about climate change and civil rights than the Boomers are. So I am hopeful, but it will be some time before they're in control. The Boomers still hold 69% of the House. They're obviously in the White House for some time. Whether that's four more weeks or eight more years remains to be seen. And they control substantial chunks of the judiciary and the administrative state. So we are going to be living in a Boomer America for some time, in part because the policies themselves will carry forward for some time."

Joy of Sex & Our Bodies, Ourselves Became Huge Bestsellers in the 1970's

In 2011, a surprise hit for the publishing industry was the huge success of an erotic novel (a trilogy, actually) from British author E. L. James called Fifty Shades of Grey, which featured explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sex involving bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM).  Fifty Shades of Grey depicted BDSM as a relatively normal part of the spectrum of human sexuality; all things that were once considered sexual deviation and depravity, even though what truly occurred behind closed doors was never really known.  The book was followed-up with a film version of Fifty Shades of Grey.  While BDSM had its day in the sun thanks largely to Fifty Shades of Grey, in hindsight, the English-speaking world should not have been surprised by any of it.  In fact, over forty years earlier, the publishing world was similarly surprised when another book about sex made the bestseller lists in the UK and in North America for many weeks.

The book was The Joy of Sex, an illustrated sex book (it was written as a sex manual) written by British author Alex Comfort MD PhD (he died in 2000) that was first published in the UK in 1961.  It became a bestseller there, and was then successfully published in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 1972.  The Joy of Sex book was very loosely modeled on the cookbook the Joy of Cooking, which in the UK was a culinary how-to book that helped to transform the way most of its readers thought about food.  The very first edition of the Joy of Sex considered sex on moving motorcycles (which is now generally outlawed, mostly due to safety concerns). The original book wrote: "If you have access to a private road, the hazards are yours," counseled the book's ironically surnamed author Dr. Alex Comfort.  Doing it on horseback (also mentioned in the 1972 edition) is also now outlawed in many places.  But the locations were never the point, rather it was that sex is supposed to be enjoyable for those involved, not merely a very dark means of potential or accidental reproduction.

At the time The Joy of Sex book was published, the UK, the US and the Anglo provinces of Canada, Australia (all unlike most other Continental European countries) were still very prudish about sex, perhaps due to outdated Victorian laws still on the books, and because the English/Anglo-American culture never openly discussed sex.  That meant that sex was something that was done (as birth rates in all English-speaking countries prove), yet was certainly never talked about in an open matter.

Yet in the US, The Joy of Sex became a huge bestseller (making the publisher very, very happy), spending 11 weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and remaining in the top 5 for more than 70 weeks (from 1972–1974).  All told, it spent a total of 343 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.  With a publishing success like that, it wasn't surprising that it was followed-up by a sequel called More Joy of Sex.  With the book's discreet cover, its content was divided into what could kind of be described as appetizers, main courses, and special sauces (consistent with the cookbook design for The Joy of Cooking).

The "hairy man" and his female lover from The Joy of Sex book

Because obscenity laws still existed in the UK and US, visual depictions of the act of sex presented some challenges, but the publisher creatively got around that with illustrated drawings, rather than with actual photography, which conveniently avoided potential controversy that might have accompanied explicit photos of people having sex, which could have been considered pornography.  That said, The Joy of Sex emerged around the same time that mainstream pornography was then starting to appear in theaters (at least in the US), including the bestselling movie of all-time (including all non-porn films) Deep Throat, would challenge decades of religious dogma which until then, had largely dominated American society almost without question (catch my post on the mainstreaming of pornography at https://goo.gl/9FG5K for more).

Although Playboy had successfully operated since the 1950's, it initially operated within a very complicated barrage of restrictions and prohibitions in certain local counties, meaning it could operate as long as there weren't local restrictions, but that was ever-changing.  Then, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its decision on Miller v. California that dramatically narrowed and simplified the definition of obscenity, which resulted in dramatically fewer prosecutions nationwide.  In that case, the definition of obscenity went from being an extremely broad understanding of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacked "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."  That meant that many serious sex publications were suddenly allowed under the nation’s newer understanding of obscenity laws.

Marilyn Monroe was the centerfold of the 1st
edition of Playboy in December 1953

Note that the 2016 decision for Playboy to eliminate the nude centerfolds it helped popularize didn't last long.  As of February 2017, the publication announced that its nude centerfolds would be back.  Founder Hugh Hefner was critical of the decision, and predicted it wouldn't last, and he was right.  Evidently, in spite of quality articles (really!), that really wasn't enough to sustain the magazine's subscriber base in an era where nudity can be attained free online from virtually anywhere in the U.S.  Buzzfeed covered the reversal at Playboy to feature nudes and did a good job covering that ill-fated decision.  Catch the article at https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/playboy-is-bringing-back-nude-photos for more.

As noted, because The Joy of Sex was illustrated, rather than with actual photos, it managed to avoid the same kind of scrutiny as actual photography might have.  The illustrations were very graphic, but looking back on them 50 years later is almost comical, with hairstyles better left in the 1960's and bushy pubic areas.  The man in the illustration was heavily bearded; his hair was long, and, and frankly, his hair seemed to be a little greasy, too. His eyelids were usually at half-mast.  He came to be popularly known in the the UK as the "hairy man" and his only slightly-less-hairy female partner (some hipsters are now doing the same thing, so I guess they haven't really learned from their elders' mistakes, even if the porn they consume looks dissimilar to them).

Our Bodies, Ourselves: the feminist alternative

There was also a feminist alternative to The Joy of Sex called Our Bodies, Ourselves which came out around the same time. That book announced on its original jacket that it was By and For Women.  But Our Bodies, Ourselves covered almost all of the same material as The Joy of Sex, just with a slightly different tone, mainly from the female perspective. That book, too, had very similar hand-drawn illustrations of a couple having sex in a series of different positions.  Interestingly, both of these books also explained that everyone was basically bisexual, so it meant that gays and lesbians weren't suddenly being as casually dismissed as society as may have tried to do (so much for Anita Bryant's initially successful, but ultimately failed efforts a few years later … men and women were still having sex with one another in a variety of combinations, no matter what she tried to ban).  This was the world in which kids of the 1970's came of age.  Kids of that era were basically left to figure things out for themselves, with the help of a very, sexually-explicit book (or two).  I later learned that these books had been banned in some parts of the country.  Maybe they could easily be removed from school libraries, but the books could still be found in many public libraries.  And kids did just that.  At least where I grew up.   And, if it wasn't available in our local public library, we could order it via an inter-library loan (ours had it, I checked for myself).

I recall finding a copy of The Joy of Sex at home (or maybe it was More Joy of Sex, I don't recall exactly, it was one of them) as a kid.  But to my surprise, I wasn't punished for finding it, I was actually allowed to read the book in its entirety, by myself, and was told to ask if I had any questions (I could tell they didn't want to do that, but felt obliged to offer that).  I guess if I found a book that someone at home was reading, they really couldn't lecture about my reading it, and not another word was ever mentioned about it.  When we had sex education in school a few years later, I remember thinking that we were kind of short-changed with the stuff we were taught in school because that book had so much more.  In school, we were taught that sex consisted of a man "inserting the penis into the woman’s vagina".  Um, "insert", as if that was a single second in time, and that was it?

Evidently, I lived in an area of the country that was more progressive than some other parts of the country.  Some places (like Utah, or Mississippi or Alabama) were trying to ban these books and some continue to do so in 2017.  They also tried to ban Playboy and/or Penthouse.  And others, like Judy Blume books.  (see my post on her at http://hgm.sstrumello.com/2012/06/tales-of-4th-grade-nothingjudy-blume.html)  Like we kids weren't talking about this stuff openly on our playgrounds?!  And there was always some kid who had moved in from out-of-town, maybe where books were banned, but school kids quickly indoctrinated them on the taboo content, so it didn’t stay secret for long.  This stuff has a way of being shared on the school playgrounds.

I guess many kids of the 1970's had a very similar experience.

See also:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15309357

The Love Boat Reaches Its Final Destination, Captain Stubing Writes About His Voyage

There's news that the vessel featured in the seventies TV show "The Love Boat" arrived at a scrapyard off the Turkish coast in early August 2013.  A ship recycling company in Turkey bought the old cruise liner for a little more than $3 million and will strip it for its parts and metal (news can be seen at http://usat.ly/1cMBA3u).  NPR featured a nice, short audio story entitled "Love Boat Reaches Its Final Destination" about the ship's run which can be listened to below, or by visiting http://n.pr/1eulObv:


Although taking a cruise on a ship like the one being discarded was viewed as the pinnacle of luxury nearly 40 years ago, these days, even Princess Cruises, Inc., the ship's original owner, much like the rest of the cruise industry, has moved on to what could best be described as floating resort hotels.  Cruising is a huge industry today (and "The Love Boat" sitcom arguably helped to make that happen), and cruise ships nowadays are unfathomable in size compared to the almost quaint-size of the original ships used back in the seventies, which were more akin to cruise liners like the Titanic than the floating high-rises that exist today.

Truth be told, although some scenes from "The Love Boat" were recorded on the ships or at their destinations, much of the show was filmed on sets in California — 20th Century Fox Studios for seasons one through five, and Warner Hollywood Studios for the remainder of the original series.  That certainly explains why the cabin sizes featured on the show looked more like hotel rooms than real-life cruise ship cabins actually did, especially during that era, although with the newer ships, the cabin sizes have expanded, too.

Much has been written about what was arguably one of Aaron Spelling's biggest hits in the 1970s (it shared a back-to-back timeslot on ABC's Saturday night lineup with another show that Aaron Spelling produced, that one being "Fantasy Island", catch my earlier post on that show at http://goo.gl/si7Fph).  Those two shows borrowed directly from the playbook of a prior ABC show which ran from 1969-1974 known as "Love, American Style", which became known in Hollywood as a place where struggling, unemployed (some of them older) actors could find temporary employment.  But the nonstop parade of familiar faces on the show was a key to its success, although the small, permanent cast who played the ship's crew was also popular with viewers.

The original concept for "The Love Boat" began as an original, made-for-TV movie which aired in 1976.  That was based on a non-fiction book, which was entitled "The Love Boats" written by Jeraldine Saunders, who was once a real-life cruise director.  Two more TV movies would follow before the series began.

As Ellen Seiter eloquently wrote, "No one takes The Love Boat to get anywhere, exactly. Usually the voyage serves to put things — especially personal relationships — back where they started.  What takes place on board is personal life: emotions removed from the everyday cares of work money, homes, cars, neighbors, even, for the most part, children. The work that the crew of The Love Boat performs is that of vigilant friends patrolling the ship night and day in search of passengers who need 'someone to talk to.'"

For the record, "The Love Boat" has been off the television rerun circuit for a while, and only the first two seasons of the series has yet to emerge in digital format (released in March 2008), although there is news that Me-TV will begin showing it in the Autumn of 2013 as part of its "Fall for Me-TV" fall 2013 schedule which will begin starting Monday, September 2, 2013 (see http://goo.gl/MSTRSK for details).  In truth, many fans of the show thought CBS/Paramount Home Video would have digitized the content much, much faster since its an opportunity to make money on something collecting dust in a company vault.  To date, only the first two seasons have been released (and CBS made the greedy decision to split each season into two separate volumes, thereby doubling the cost).  Some are hoping Shout! Factory will step in to pick up the pace, much as they did when Sony stopped after it released Season 1 of "Fantasy Island".  Regardless, fans were glad to see the show again, and the guest list is incredible, with everyone from comedy and stage legends like George Burns, Milton Berle, and Ethel Merman to TV staples ranging from Florence Henderson, Robert Reed and Maureen McCormick, John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Audra Lindley to Dick Sargent, Bonnie Franklin, Meredith Baxter, to kid stars including Kristy McNichol, and Scott Baio.

At this point, while its sad to see "The Love Boat" vessel go to the scrap heap, its fair to say this show helped popularize cruising as a vacation for millions of Americans who might not have ever considered it.  Prior to "The Love Boat", cruise vacations was something that affluent, older people did.  Pastimes on the ships consisted of lectures, shuffleboard and fine dining, but casual sex hookups or rekindling of romances were seldom seen as an onboard activity.  "The Love Boat" changed all that, and helped pave the way for companies like Carnival to become the largest in the industry, best known for being "the fun ships".

Beyond the actual vessel heading to the junkyard, the actor who played Captain Merrill Stubing has already started promoting a new biographical memoir entitled "This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life" due to be released October 22, 2013, published by Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins.   According to actor Gavin McLeod, he's coming clean about his long career in show business.

Historically, biographies tended to be written by third-party authors, partly because writing was left to authors with a track-record in the publishing industry.  However, we've seen a shift towards more self-written biographies, and more recently, the publishing industry has tended to favor memoirs over lengthy biographies.  Also, life spans are longer today, making it possible for people to write about their own lives much longer than in the past.

Nevertheless, in the last few months, there have been some pop culture memoirs from celebrities who were big in the 1970s and 1980s.  Actress Valerie Harper ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") published hers at the beginning of 2013, and got a lot of attention since she also announced she had terminal cancer.  More recently, Academy Award winner (and star of TV's "The Partridge Family", catch my post on that at http://goo.gl/yuqQN) Shirley Jones came out with a new memoir in which she revealed having threesomes for her ex-husband Jack Cassidy (see http://goo.gl/uVxDi for a post I did on her).  Now, there's news of another memoir from the man who was best known on television for his roles as Murray Slaughter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and perhaps even better known for his role as Captain Merrill Stubing on "The Love Boat".  That man is 82-year-old Gavin MacLeod.

In an upcoming autobiography entitled "This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life" to be released October 22, 2013 by published by Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins, he's coming clean about his long career in show business.

As far as readability, this one might be fair, although as the title suggests, Mr. McLeod seems to prosthelytize a bit when writes about how he brought longtime friend, fellow "Mary Tyler Moore Show" co-star Ted Knight (who was also known for his role on "Too Close for Comfort" back in the 1980s) to Christ just before he died in 1986.  Whether Gavin McLeod deserves credit for this is unclear (after all, Mr. Knight was dying), but Gavin McLeod is taking credit for it.

Beyond that, there's a dose of all the usual Hollywood stuff: battles with depression and near-suicide while working on "McHale's Navy", as well as his other health issues including two heart attacks and a quintuple bypass, as well as his alcoholism which led to his quitting cold turkey in back in 1974 (he says he's now been sober for 39 years).  He also writes about his audition for the original role of Archie Bunker in "All in the Family", and of course, his divorce from his first wife, his second marriage, divorce and subsequent re-marriage to his second wife, actress/dancer Patti Steele.

He also writes about his encounters with some of the world's biggest stars, including Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan (an actor before he became California governor or U.S. President), Steve McQueen, Bette Davis and Robert Redford and others.

MacLeod writes "My life has taken one incredible turn after another. I've gotten to do what I wanted to do. I've been a captain! I've been given this incredible gift of life and now I want to use it to give back. That's why I'm sharing my story here, the fun parts and even some not-so-fun parts, in the hopes that maybe someone will take a nice walk down memory lane with me - and maybe I'll even give someone a little bit of hope."

To be sure, the book might be interesting reading, but its kind of late.  Still, for anyone who wants Captain Stubing's perspective on life on "The Love Boat" set, this might be a way to, as Jack Jones sang in the show's memorable theme song "Set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance ..."

Author P.S., August 28, 2017:  Peter Knego became a cruise ship historian and journalist after growing up near the Port of Los Angeles World Cruise Center in San Pedro, and he grew up obsessed with all the cruise ships that docked in his city.  He has retained a large collection of ship memorabilia, including some of the ships' original artworks, etc.  Unfortunately, Princess Cruises was not interested in his collection, even though his hobby has resulted in a great deal of original Love Boat content being saved, which could potentially be refurbished or recreated in the future.  He has started selling some items featured on the The Love Boat's ships.  The network Me-TV featured a blog post about his archived collection and detail on where he's selling some at http://bit.ly/2iE8X4C if you're interested in learning more.

Author P.S., November 17, 2020: Vulture and other outlets report that the ViacomCBS-owned free streaming platform known as Pluto TV https://pluto.tv will be bringing six new "virtual" channels devoted to throwback TV shows from corporate sibling CBS Television Distribution to its platform, adding over 60 seasons of classic TV series on November 24, 2020. Among the six virtual channels being added to Pluto TV is a channel dedicated to the Aaron Spelling's show "The Love Boat" (a total of 9 seasons) in which celebrity guest stars hopped onboard the Pacific Princess each week in hopes of finding romance (they almost always do). The best part is that Pluto TV is free (it has commercials, but not as many as first-run shows seem to have).

The Story of Polaroid

In 2013, the notion of instant photography is with most people all the time.  Our mobile phones have not only cameras, but video cameras that were once seen as gee-whiz technology.  But 40 years ago, we still had things like Fotomats, which were the original outparcel retailers that offered fast (next-day) photo developing before every pharmacy in the country did it right in front of you.  In those days, developing film still required a dark room.  Mail-order providers like Clark Color Labs offered film developing at a discount if you did it by mail order.  These days, they still develop photos, but has refashioned itself as something akin to Snapfish (although competition exists, including from Lenovo Photos which sells photo books and the like at cut-rates).

However, as WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show" featured last November, during the 1960s and 1970s, Polaroid was the coolest technology company on earth.  Mr. Lopate interviews a man named Christopher Bonanos who has a new(ish) book entitled "Instant: The Story of Polaroid".  Listen to that interesting interview below, or by visiting http://www.wnyc.org/story/250794-story-polaroid/:

In his book, and in the interview with Leonard Lopate, Christopher Bonanos tells the tale of Polaroid's first instant camera to hit the market in 1948 to its meteoric rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close, to the company's dramatic decline into bankruptcy (Polaroid stopped making film in 2008) and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age as a hot brand.

These days, Polaroid[s], or at least pseudo-Polaroids, are everywhere, with Instagram and popular websites like Poladroid [http://www.poladroid.net/] and Polaroin [http://www.polaroin.com/] making it possible to turn virtually any shitty photo taken with a cheap cell phone to look like a retro-Polaroid.

Indeed, the Polaroid background has proven very enduring.  The image of instant photos with a wide strip at the bottom seems more popular today as a photo enhancement than it ever was during the original company's original business heyday (today's Polaroid is a re-invention as the original company, which pretty much ceased to exist at the turn of the new Millennium).

A man named Antonio Pedrosa from ADR studio developed a concept he called the Instagram Socialmatic Camera, which interestingly enough, will be soon sold by Polaroid itself, or at least the new owners of the Polaroid brand name.  The concept features an internal printer which will allow users to print directly on Instagram paper sheets, with a release planned for early 2014 (Editor Note, Jan. 6, 2014: An "official" announcement of this product's launch can be seen at http://bit.ly/KtI113).  Not surprisingly, the camera will look much like a retro-Polaroid Land Camera in a new, digital format.

The Soon-to-Be-Introduced Instagram Socialmatic Camera

So it seems that Polaroid has reinvented itself for the digital age, while former giants like Kodak haven't been so lucky.  To be sure, some rivals like Fujifilm still sell the old chemical film (in fact, Fuji still sells cartridges that work in old Polaroid cameras in case anyone is interested, for now anyway).

But Polaroid has endured as a brand.

To be sure, royalties for the brand doesn't quite make it the powerhouse employer in the Boston area that it once was, but it seems that nostalgia still means something.  An online store selling film and other Polaroid merchandise can be found at https://us.polaroidoriginals.com.  Only time will tell whether the hipsters who have helped to resurrect the brand in today's environment will continue to support the brand over the long-term, but today, its very much around.

Author P.S. (July 30, 2014): There was news today that another iconic American brand that pretty much died as a result of the digital revolution is getting some help from some big-name film directors, including Judd Apatow and Quentin Tarantino, who are apparently pushing various Hollywood movie studios to commit to buying a certain amount of film from Kodak for the next several years.  The reason is that they want to preserve the option to shoot film recording.  Movies shot on film do have a certain artistic quality that doesn't exist with digital recordings, and a number of small theaters across the country are still only equipped to show movies shot on celluloid film.  However, American Public Media's marketplace.org reports that David Reibstein, a professor at The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School says that having the option to use film in the long-term really depends on just what Kodak does with these sales now.  If the company continues to do what they were doing yet isn't working, that won't ensure that Kodak film (or film from any other film manufacturer including Japan's Fuji or Europe's Agfa which is based in Belgium) will remain available indefinitely unless the company behind the product remains in business, which means they must use the money to evolve their business.  As we've seen, another U.S. film manufacturer (Polaroid) has enjoyed considerable success as a brand.  Whether Kodak can do the same remains to be seen.  Listen to the story at http://ow.ly/zN53G.

Author P.S. (November 23, 2016):  Marketplace ran a story entitled "Nostalgia is driving up sales for Polaroid" http://bit.ly/2fHnyX2 which discussed the company's resurgence and acknowledged that hipsters with no experience with the original instant photography were a big part of their success.

Pop Culture Reunion: Pippi Longstocking

Most kids around the world have read Pippi Longstocking when they were growing up, and probably also the two sequel books about this favorite kids character, including: Pippi Goes on Board and Pippi in the South Seas.  The author claims to have made the stories up the story for her young daughter who was sick (back in the late 1940s), and when her daughter kept asking for more stories about Pippi, she decided to write the stories down.  The books were first published in Sweden back in the 1950s, but were translated into virtually all European languages and various others, initially by Viking Press (appropriately enough).  The rest, as they say, is history.

Indeed, the author, Astrid Lindgren, became something of a national folk hero in Sweden, although she passed away in 2002.  Still, even as of December 2012, Ms. Lindgren was the world's 20th most-translated author on earth and sold roughly 145 million copies of her books worldwide.  That's pretty darn good, following only the Bible, the Koran, the works of William Shakespeare and a handful of others in terms of being the most-translated books on earth.

The reason the stories are so endearing to kids isn't hard to understand.  The little girl known as Pippi lives in a house all by herself (along with a pet monkey named Mr. Nilsson and a horse that lives on the front porch).  Because she lives all alone, there’s no one around to tell her to do her homework or even go to school.    Indeed one of the funniest chapters is the day she actually does go to school.  She also has a suitcase full of gold pieces so money isn't an issue.  She has extraordinary strength, being able to lift her horse one-handed without difficulty.  The two burglars who attempt to rob her are no match for this unusual little girl.  Pippi's social interactions, on the other hand, aren't what adults consider to be "refined".  In the original book, her attendance at neighbor Mrs. Settergren's (Tommy & Annika's mother) house proved to be a social disaster, and an experience which taught Pippi a lesson in humility.

Needless to say, all of these factors means the Pippi Longstocking character has enjoyed a timeless quality, which also means the books remain popular even today, more than a half century after they were first created.

The Pippi Longstocking movies were actually compiled from a television series which ran on one of the major Swedish TV networks which first aired in 1969.  Needless to say, kids who grew up in the 1970s had a good chance of seeing this cast.  Swedish actress Inger Nilsson starred as Pippi in the original TV series, and her portrayal is perhaps the best-loved, and is also considered the best-acted version of the beloved book character.  Various sources have depicted her performance as a "confident yet oddball" that was also uncommonly consistent for a child actress.  Newer versions of Pippi Longstocking in film, including the 1988 Columbia Pictures version that starred American actress Tami Erin were not especially well-received by movie critics, nor the children whom the movie was supposed to appeal.

The 1969 Swedish television series starred Inger Nilsson and she remains perhaps the best-loved actress to portray Pippi, although others have been produced around the world including a Russian movie version of Pippi Longstocking.  Americans actually knew the 1969 Swedish TV version as 3 separate movies, which were dubbed into English, something that is still not all that common to American viewers.  Those were as follows:

1. Pippi Longstocking
2. Pippi Goes on Board
3. Pippi in the South Seas

These 3 movies seem to closely follow the flow of the 3 books written by Astrid Lindgren, which made the children's appeal stronger, as kids could read the book and know what was coming in the next episode.  As I understand it, each episode of the Swedish TV show matched a chapter in the original books, so assembling them together into a movie that flowed logically was straightforward.  While produced for Swedish television, the production was actually a Swedish-West German co-production, and several German actors/actresses had roles.

All 3 of the original 1969 movie versions can be purchased online at Amazon.com (see http://amzn.to/U7b2me for details), and I would presume, you can probably find them on Netflix as well, although you may need to search for them there.

Original 2005 Cast Reunion on German TV

Although 35 years had passed since the original shows were recorded, the cast grew up went their separate ways, with some even leaving Sweden to live elsewhere (like the European sunbelt country Spain).  Inger Nilsson (Pippi Longstocking), Maria Persson (Annika Settergren) and Pär Sundberg (Tommy Settergren) had reportedly not seen each other for more than a decade.  Inger went on to become an actress (big surprise!), while Maria (Annika) moved to Mallorca, Spain a with her son, and Pär (Tommy) became a businessman in Sweden.

On February 26, 2005, German TV network RTL broadcasted "Die grössten TV-hits aller Zeiten - Die beliebtesten Kinderserien" (which translated into English means "TV's Greatest Hits - The Most Beloved Children's Series").  Pippi Longstocking came in sixth place (also known as Pippi Långstrump in Swedish, Pippi Langstrumpf in German) and the three actors who played Pippi, Tommy and Annika were reunited especially for that show.

The RTL broadcast was an interesting reunion because the only common language that all of them (meaning the news crew and Pippi cast) seemed to speak was English, hence American viewers could actually follow a decent portion of the conversation from German TV, although you might have missed bits and pieces if you hadn't studied any German (or Swedish!) in high school.  The interview was conducted in German, although they spoke both English and Swedish, with German dubs, and no subtitles.  Alas, thanks to copyright challenges, the original YouTube video (which was previously at http://youtu.be/5SDwHUrFch0) featuring this cast reunion has disappeared from the online world, which is unfortunate for American viewers.

However, I suspect Inger Nilsson will continue to enjoy the distinction of being the best-cast "Pippi Longstocking" for some time to come.  Much like other shows with child casts (think of Broadway shows like "Annie" for example), finding child actors to play these roles goes beyond having someone who looks the part and can memorize the lines.  Casting is key to ensuring the movie version is consistent with the tone of the original book.  For example, British author Roald Dahl reportedly hated the 1973 film version of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", although he had also gone on record noting it had less to do with the child actors in that film version than it did with presenting the movie from the perspective of Willie Wonka, rather than from Charlie Bucket (catch my reunion post on Willie Wonka at http://goo.gl/Xn4ou).  In any event, the Pippi cast reunion was one cast reunion I never expected to find online, but the world is a smaller place these days!