bettie page blog

Check out the SEX WORKERS ART SHOW, currently featuring burlesque luminaries Simone De La Getto, Jo Weldon, World Famous "BOB"

Interesting interview with Toronto performer Sasha Von Bon Bon in the PINK TRIANGLE PRESS.

AMISH BURLESQUE: "The opening number is a striptease where the only thing removed is a sock in about five minutes," says producer Marty Schiff... READ MORE

Cool interview with Oxford performer Tempest Rose by the OXFORD MAIL.

EXAMINER review of MINKSY'S, a musical set in the world of early Burlesque. Previewing in Los Angeles, the show is bound for Broadway. Good ol' Wikipedia fills in the history of the show, which was developed from the 1968 feature, THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S, which, in turn, was inspired by true events. LA OBSERVED spotlights the musical as well. NPR talked to George Wendt, one of the stars of the show.

The Los Angeles Times profiles Betty Rowland, an original 'Minsky's' girl. The former burlesque dancer, 93, describes a tough but rewarding experience performing during the Depression.

Australian Stage interviews Ali McGregor about the connections between stand-up comedy, burlesque, cabaret and opera.

"Teasy Does It" -- an article in NZ Herald News about New Zealand's Hootchy Kootchy Girls expands into a general article about the development of neo-burlesque.

Daily Free Press profile of the Boston Baby Dolls.

A BroadwayWorld.com article on Denver's Black Box Burlesque: For the first time since the 1930's a theatre is being built specifically to house burlesque, headed up by Reyna Von Vett of last fall's acclaimed Leadville or Bust.

NY Daily News introduces us to Stiletto Spy School.

Des McAnuff explains why there are now burlesque dancers in his reinvention/revival of GUYS AND DOLLS, currently on Broadway. "Miss Adelaide keeps telling us that she has a chronic cold because of her skin exposure," McAnuff laughs, "and that makes a lot more sense if she's a burlesque stripper than a nightclub dancer."

Grand Rapids performer, the hula-hooping burlesque dancer named "Vivacious Miss Audacious", is interviewed by her father's (uncomfortable) co-worker.

Review of the burlesque-themed "mocumentary" TUMBLING AFTER.

TIMES ONLINE uncovers DIY Lingerie.

Talk about standing behind your work! Gavin Hignight, the creator and writer of the superantural/rockabilly graphic novel MOTOR CITY now sports a fresh tattoo of the book's comely character, "SAM"... in a Bettie Page-inspired pin-up originally drawn by the book's illustrator, Jetilla Lewis.

Gavin tells us, "I got that Tattoo from Hanah Aitchison, on the TV show LA Ink, but I'm not sure if the episode will air or not this season. Her work is freaking incredible though."

For more info on MOTOR CITY:
www.gavinhignight.com
www.motorcitycomic.com

The ladies at Chicago’s Thought You Knew are looking for some press for their upcoming calendar. And who are we to say no?

The 2009 calendar features 50’s style pin up photography by Michelle Nolan. All proceeds benefit the Chicago Women’s Health Center [CWHC] -- that's $25,000 to CWHC if the callendars sell out.

Visit www.thoughtyouknew.us for more info.

A thoughtful post on the meaning of burlesque. Worth the READ. (Sammy Snapshot's Thoughts & Images blog)

Popmatters has a great post on Rose Maddox and The Maddox Brothers. CHECK IT OUT

In the new book, SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN'S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER, the characters in these twisted drawings, tied up, spanked and worse, look almost exactly like Lois, Superman, Jimmy Olsen and Luthor. They're not, of course (something else Yoe points out -- probably for legal reasons), but NIGHTS OF HORROR gives an unnerving (and fascinating) glimpse at what comic books might look like if the Code insisted on out-of-bounds behavior instead of forbidding it.

READ MORE about this book at comic book writer Will Pfeifer's blog, X-Ray Spex

Dita Von Teese signed a record contract with Interscope Europe and is working on an album, according to E! Online in late February, but we just noticed this morning!

FULL STORY

Whether it's music, shoes or, in this case, lipstick, it's funny how if you have a style you love, within a few years you will go from "hopelessly lame" to "cutting edge" -- without having actually made any changes!

So, for those who love bold, primary-color red-red lipstick... congrats! You've once again been deemed "in fashion" by the fashion police! Enjoy it, because you'll probably be "tired" pretty soon, then "out", then "bold" then "in fashion" again... you know how it goes!
UK's DAILY MAIL: GLORY IN RED -- Red lips were everywhere on the summer catwalks. We show you how to wear it.

"Trophy queens represent an important part of American racing lore. They injected a shot of glamour to the tough sport of racing," according to an NHRA (National Hot Rod Association, if you're unfamiliar) official. Amidst the grease and the steel, The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, located at Fairplex Gate 1, 1101 W. McKinley Avenue in Pomona, has been honoring those comely lasses that posed with the winners of hot rod races, past and present.

Jayne Mansfield, Barbara Eden ("I Dream of Jeannie") and Raquel Welch (pictured above, with Don Cameron, 1956 United Racing Association champion... back when she was still going by her given name, Raquel Tejada) have all graced the track as Trophy Queens.

From THE BEST WEEK EVER:

By now, you are all well aware of the scandal that has befallen former Project Runway contestant Kenley Collins. No, not the dress copying one – though good thinking — rather how Ms. Collins was jailed for throwing a cat at her (ex?)-boyfriend. Some of you (read: none of you) may have given Kenley the benefit of the doubt on this one...

Click HERE for the rest of the snark. Or, watch the video where Tim Gunn unloads on Kenley:

They say that country is a genre that allows a musician to grow old with grace. The fans stay loyal and the road never ends. Maybe that's why so many punks start to twang it up when they start seeing the north side of 40. It's only right, as punk appropriated the direct, down-to-earthy lyrics and 1-4-5 major chord patterns of country, while picking up the pace and stripping away (at least in the early days of punk) all of the pickin' prowess.

However aging punks are often caught in a dilemma -- as they get older their musicianship improves, their interest in the same pedal-pushing tempo fades, their lyrical interest broadens and deepens with their increased life experiences, but they are trapped in a genre that for many years militantly resisted any of this... causing many punk icons to "cross the tracks" into country. All of this seems natural... moving back in time, exploring an even more primordial style of American music. That is, until you look at the contemporary "country" landscape... populated by John Rich (Love everybody... except liberals and gays), Kenny Chesney and a whole boatload of reality show fembots.

What's a country/punk to do?

Perhaps the rockabilly audience is the closest available for these acts... openminded folks who have an appreciation for "real" country and a working knowledge of punk. Maybe that's why Mike Herrera (best known for being the frontman of MxPx) is pitching his solo project, Tumbledown, as a rockabilly-inspired act, when, in fact, it sounds much more "alt country" or "roots rock" or "american" than "rockabilly". Still solidly enjoyable, though. It'll be fun to hear the album when it's done.

HELP US COME UP WITH A LIST OF PUNKS GONE COUNTRY:

Country Dick
Jello Biafra

Dita vs. The Pussycat Dolls:

"It drives me crazy when the media or groups like the Pussycat Dolls try to sanitize and take away the sexual and nudity aspects of burlesque."

She added: "I'm sorry, but if you're not up there taking your clothes off and dancing around in pasties and a G-string, it's not burlesque.

"It can be cabaret, or it can be cute and funny and retro-showgirly, but it's not burlesque. They were strippers, and that's the way it was."

...he didn't want 'boas, strippers, and (expletive)' in his neighborhood... - Boston Babydolls vs. City Hall!

Seattle Weekly's 26 pic slideshow of Moisture Fest Burlesque...

Denver Post's slideshow from the New Denver Civic's "Leadville Or Bust" and "Black Box Burlesque."

Video of Los Angeles' Burlesque Bingo at the Key Club, on LA Weekly's site.

Project Runway's Kenley Collins in Jail for Attacking Fiance with Pussycat

> Posted by Rod Hagwood at 4:58:04 PM on SunSentinel.com

She's not just a hellcat.

She's hell on cats.

Kenley Collins - the serial-rude contestant from season five of Project Runway - spent St. Patrick's Day caged behind bars after being arrested for attacking her boyfriend with (in no particular order):

1. a laptop

2. assorted apples and water glasses

3. a door (slammed his head in it we hear)

4. a living, breathing probably-pissed-off cat

The third-placer allegedly went ballistic on her sleeping ex-fiance - one Zak Penley - in their shared Brooklyn home early yesterday morning according to TMZ.com. We can only assume that it was too early to have a St. Patrick's Day buzz, so maybe he wasn't wearing a fashionable shade of green.

According to papers from the D.A., Kenley ripped into her lover-slash-victim with, "You're lucky. It could've been a lot worse."

That is true. He might still be her fiance. Seriously dude, you live with your ex-fiance and you close your eyes? Do you have a death wish?

Here's a delicious detail from the cat-astrophe: if they DID get married she'd be Mrs. Kenley Penley.

Kenley Penley.

That's only slightly funny...after the first few years of marriage.

Kenley has been charged with six crimes including 2nd degree assault, 3rd degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon in the 4th degree.

Hey, what about animal cruelty?

Can't wait to see the puddy-tat on Larry King and Inside Edition.

The youngest of three girls, Collins began her career at 16 when she started reconstructing vintage clothing. The 26-year-old daughter of a Broward County tugboat captain, Collins has a marketing degree from Florida State University.

After graduating from FSU in 2005, Collins set her sights on crashing the New York scene. In a relatively short time, she has supported herself by teaching sewing classes and designing childrenswear, and even managed to get a few of her designs into a boutique.

Collins rose quickly with her Bettie Page hairstyle and boundless energy, morphing a sales job at Missy Wear into a design position within a week.

She auditioned for HGTV’s Design Star while working for what she calls a “cheesy women’s wear company.” That job did give her two years of Seventh Avenue design experience and invaluable insight into the garment business.

“I am a very ambitious person,” Collins told me in a telephone interview days before the fifth season premiered on July 16th in 2008. “I’m a hard worker.”

On her MySpace page at the time, the one-time bartender described herself as "a tough girly-girl who likes to make clothes, listen to music, watch movies and drink dirty martinis."

And cat-fighting....she forgot to mention her nuanced cat-fighting. Faster pussycat, kill, kill.

In that 2008 interview, I asked Kenley how she thought she'd come across once the series starting airing in the middle of that summer.

She answered: "I know I laugh a lot. I don't want people to think that's all I do. I may not be portrayed in the best way. I'm very outspoken and I'm not very sensitive to others - especially in that sort of environment. I want people to know that I'm a nice person and I have a big heart and I think it shows. We'll have to see. A lot happened in that time."

...Talking about Women’s History Month over the last 10 days, I asked people who their female role models in history are, and I got a wide array of answers — from Joan of Arc to Susan B. Anthony to Bettie Page. While mothers and grandmothers took the No. 1 place of role models in general, people listed off activists, scholars, authors, doctors, leaders, athletes and queens.

Article in the University of Idaho's Argonaut

This Costa Mesa CA icon does barberin' right.

Read about 'em here and be glad y' did:

It's the rare moment when a can of Pabst and a straight razor really should comingle.

But peek through the window of Hawleywood's Barber Shop in Costa Mesa, and you'll see old-school beers and old-school razors forming a rare but nice harmony.

You'll see Donnie Hawley in there too. He's the co-owner, the guy talking and shaving and styling and generally breathing life into a business that could double as a clubhouse or movie set or, you know, a barber shop.

MORE HERE AT THE OC REGISTER

Peter Bjorn and John "Nothing To Worry About"


Peter Bjorn and John's video for "Nothing To Worry About" features the Tokyo Rockabilly Club in Yoyogi Park. Is it celebratory or ironic and what does that mean for the rest of us greasers?

Video
About the Tokyo Rockabilly Club

If you scroll back to the humble beginnings of this blog, you'll see it started near the time Dave Stevens died. For those who don't know, Dave was one of a handful of talented Bettie fans who helped engineer a personal and professional renaissance for Bettie. Creator of THE ROCKETEER, Dave uses Bettie as the model for his hero's girlfriend, and, as such, exposed a generation of fans to Bettie's appeal. More than any artist except Olivia, he had a clear understanding of the ingredients of Bettie's appeal... and had the skill to translate this appeal to paper.

Striken with leukemia (which affected his output) and taken from us far too soon, Dave doesn't have a voluminous legacy, but one of unparalleled quality.

Bud's Art Books, a real mecca for pin-up, fantasy art and thinking comics fans, has a limited-edition print, SIGNED AND NUMBERED by Dave Stevens on sale for just shy of $60.00.

We ran across blurbs for this book, which we haven't read (but want to!):

Nothing But a Smile
A Novel by Steve Amick

From the author of the widely praised The Lake, The River & the Other Lake comes the delightful love story of a man and a woman who choose an unconventional way to redefine themselves during and after World War II.

It's 1944 and Wink Dutton, a former illustrator for Yank and Stars and Stripes, has arrived in Chicago after an injury to his drawing hand gets him an unwanted discharge from the service. Renting a room above the camera shop run by Sal Chesterton--the wife of Wink's buddy, still stationed in the Philippines--Wink is surprised to learn how Sal is making ends meet: producing pinup photos for the soldiers' favorite girlie magazines. In fact, she's using herself as a model. When Wink becomes a partner in her covert enterprise, it's the beginning of a collaboration that is both wonderfully sexy and pure, one that blossoms into a subtle and unexpected romance. Their work leads to Wink's reinvention as a photographer and, as the war ends and the business expands, to a shared understanding of the painful adjustments to be made in the rapidly changing postwar world.

Steve Amick's grasp of Wink and Sal's generation is remarkable, as is his fresh take on the period. The triumph of the war's end is tempered by his deep understanding of its quiet undercurrents--the fear of not knowing what to do next, the loss of more carefree prewar selves, the sorrow of mourning soldiers recently dead when everyone else is parading in the streets. In the surprising story of Wink and Sal, Amick has created a beautifully understated love letter to an America of simpler choices that were nonetheless hard for the people who made them.

Column: “Wearing Nothing But A Smile”
Local author Steve Amick's new novel draws crowd to Nicola's

By Bill Castanier

March 12, 2009
A display of Steve Amicks new book at Nicolas Books in the Westgate Shopping Center.

A display of Steve Amick's new book at Nicola's Books in the Westgate Shopping Center. Amick held a book-signing there on Tuesday.

Don’ t avoid the obvious: there is a half-naked woman on the cover of Steve Amick’s new book – wearing “nothing but a smile,” which appropriately is the title of the book (wink-wink). She made quite the impression on you when you walked into Nicola’s Books, where Amick was doing a book signing Tuesday night.

How she got there is quite an innocent story. The book, “Wearing Nothing But a Smile,” deftly balances the innocence of WWII pin-up girls with the harsh realities of the war back home.

Amick admits to stumbling on the idea of a book with the pin-up industry central to the plot.

In 2006, the Ann Arbor author said he and his father-in-law had been talking about cheesecake art, especially the work of noted pin-up artist Gil Elvgren, whose work they both admired. Later, Amick was looking for a calendar online when he came across an especially cheesy pin-up.

“It was old – really old amateur photograph of a girl in a bathing suit. Well, actually half a bathing suit,” Amick said. He showed the audience his muse at the book signing and it appeared that no bathing suit was closer to the truth.

He printed out the pin-up and put it in his writing file. A day later he looked at it and made it his assignment to write about that picture.

“I thought it would be a great assignment and I gave it the title ‘Girlies,’” he said. “I’m a writer who works with assignments.” This may be partially derived from Amick’s song writing and art skills. Amick has a CD and drew the dust jacket art for his first book, “The Lake, the River & the Other Lake.”

The result is an unusual look at the war on the home front, complete with a love lost, a love found and survival wrapped around an innocent diversion that gradually becomes sleazy.

The plot is like one of those innumerable WWII war movies. Near the end of the war, the central character, Wink Dutton, returns home with a hand injury which has ruined his cartooning career. He decides to make an unannounced visit to Sal, his buddy’s wife who has stepped in to operate a family camera store in Chicago. Wink rents a room from Sal and discovers she has been attempting to supplement her income by selling pin-up photos with herself as the model. Of course, Wink graciously offers to step in as the photographer.

Amick said that although the book is peripherally about the pin-up industry, that it “wasn’t going to be another Kavalier & Clay,” (which detailed the comic book industry while along the way winning the Pulitzer Prize).

“It is really about two people putting themselves into positions where conflicts and needs are created. I just let flow. It’s a he said/she said novel,” he told the large crowd which filled every seat in Nicola’s on a cold wet night. It may have been gloomy outside, but Amick entertained the group with his wit and readings, which were frequently punctuated with laughter.

It’s a funny book, in addition to being a romantic and historical look at an era. The one scene he read where Sal and her friend Renee buy black market nylons for the budding pin-up business was reminiscent of Lucy and Ethel and their outlandish skits on the Ricky Ricardo show. The book nails the era: the home front city of Chicago, the burgeoning women’s movement, the black market economy and tough and tumble streets of Chicago’s Loop.

If you’ve ever seen a WWII-era interior photograph of a soldier’s barracks, you’ve probably noticed pin-ups adorning a wall above a bed. Not only did GIs carry the folded pin-ups into battle, but they ended up on the noses of bombers and fighter planes (probably some made right here in nearby Ypsilanti). Many a GI’s green trunk came home from the war with Ava Gardner pasted on the inside of the plywood luggage.

The women in the pin-up photographs are legendary and went on to become major stars, including Dorothy Lamour, Rita Hayworth and Heddy Lamar. Amick said the pin-up industry was informally sanctioned by the military brass and even Yank Magazine and Stars and Stripes carried pin-ups. He said at the beginning of the war the pin-ups were actually sleazier than they were later in the war, when they were toned down to present a different image back home and as the war manned up.

Later, pin-ups would be transformed on the pages of men’s magazines such as Playboy, which Amick subtly weaves into his new book. They also began to become the backbone of a much seedier business as they were exported from Times Square to middle America.

Amick said he had no intention of writing this book. He had another manuscript at a publisher and since his wife was expecting and his father-in-law had been recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, he had put his writing on hold. (He dedicated the book to his father-in-law, Don Burau.)

But the book did get written. As fate would have it, that pin-up girl motioned Amick to come hither, and he began writing the book in January 2007. He figured he would write about the pin-up girl and place her in Chicago and he would be able to talk with his dying father-in-law about that era and pin-up girls, which generally sounds more interesting than “Tuesdays with Morrie.”

Locals will appreciate Amick’s weaving in an important Ann Arbor connection. But Amick is careful to tell you that, too, is an accident. While wondering what camera Wink would use to shoot pin-ups, it dawned on Amick that it should be an Argus, once made right here in Ann Arbor. A reception following the signing was appropriately held in the old Argus building on William and Fourth, where a collection of old Argus cameras and memorabilia hold forth.

In his discussions about the book, Amick leaves the reason for the trip to Ann Arbor a little vague to avoid a spoiler, but let’s just say that the scenes shift to Ann Arbor after the war, when the pin-up industry begins to evolve into something less than innocent. Amick told the book-signing audience that he enjoyed writing the Ann Arbor segment, especially “about the things that aren’t here.”

When asked how much research he did on the novel, he said, “I tried to write things that I knew and were safe. It’s factual, not fact heavy.”

He also told the audience he didn’t know who the model for the cover is, saying, “It’s no woman I’ve ever seen – at least not in that state.”
Steve Amick signs copies of his book at a Marach 10 reading at Nicolas Books.

Steve Amick signs copies of his book at a March 10 reading at Nicola's Books.

One woman in the audience was especially intrigued by the book. Doris Strite of Ann Arbor was there to hear Amick and get her book signed. She said she worked at Argus from 1940-46.

“I took care of the sales department,” she said. Stite said she is looking forward to reading the book. “It was great – great working there.” She met her husband in the parts department at Argus.

By the way, Amick was not only signing his books but also making rough sketches of Argus C-3s or half-naked women.

Amick has done a wonderful job in his second book of mixing a tender love story against the atmospheric backdrop of WWII. He shows a nation of mourning also quixotically dancing in the streets as the war ends, wondering what it will do next. And his descriptions of the Chicago home front will leave you yearning for a noisy stop in Berghoff’s.

The author said he wrote the novel prior to the nation’s current financial crisis, but the undercurrent he has captured about survival, moving on and an unknown future has caught the attention of reviewers, who see it as a metaphor for what we must do to survive difficult times. Amick’s book seems to suggest that The Greatest Generation is still showing us the way.

Amick said at the reception that his book will soon be reviewed in the New York Times and People magazine.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going online to look for one of those pin-ups.

Another Bettie Page Blog Recession Buster:

Click HEREto stream Country Club by John Doe (he of X, The Knitters, a fab solo career and an eclectic acting resume) and the alt-country virtuosos, The Sadies. And no, we're not in "in the tank" for Yep Roc... don't even know the people. But with a roster that includes John Doe, Los Straitjackets, Southern Culture on the Skids and The Reverend Horton Heat, it's hard not to shill!

From YEP ROC:

In true honky tonk style, Country Club is the bastard child of a drunken promise.

A post show hang-out between X & the Knitters’ John Doe and The Sadies produced the idea to join forces to a make an album of country songs. Both rock n’ roll and country music are littered with the ghosts of broken promises but this one was destined to become reality. Timeless sounds abound on Country Club, driven by Doe’s gorgeously rough-hewn vocals, the dueling thousand pound chops of the guitar-wielding Good brothers and The Sadies’ world class rhythm section of Mike Belitsky and Sean Dean.

Here, the Countrypolitan sound of late 1960s Nashville is filtered through the telecaster-based tonk of Bakersfield, CA and the results are simply stunning. Classic tunes by Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings stand alongside corkers by Tammy Wynette and Roger Miller, all of them getting unique treatments by Doe and The Sadies. The album also features four originals - three from The Sadies and one courtesy of the timeless pairing of John Doe and Exene Cervenka.

On Country Club Doe and The Sadies find the perfect blend of the reverent and the experimental, resulting in a slightly psychedelic brew that just might pass for straight if you’re not lookin’.

Tracklist:
1) "Stop the World and Let Me Off" (made famous by Waylon Jennings)
2) "Husbands and Wives" (made famous by Roger Miller)
3) "'Til I Get It Right" (made famous by Tammy Wynette)
4) "It Just Dawned on Me" (by Exene Cervenka, John Doe)
5) "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such as I" (made famous by Hank Snow)
6) "The Night Life" (made famous by Ray Price)
7) "The Sudbury Nickel" (by The Sadies)
8) "Before I Wake" (by The Sadies)
9) "I Still Miss Someone" (made famous by Johnny Cash, Roy Cash Jr.)
10) "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" (made famous by Porter Wagoner)
11) "Take These Chains from My Heart" (made famous by Hank Williams)
12) "Help Me Make It Through the Night" (made famous by Kris Kristofferson)
13) "Are the Good Times Really Over for Good" (made famous by Merle Haggard)
14) "Detroit City" (made famous by Bobby Bare)
15) "Pink Mountain Rag" (by The Sadies)

CD/LP Release Date: April 14, 2009. Pre-order Country Club at the Yep Roc Webshop and get a limited edition guitar pick. These were created as promotional items for Country Club and will not be available after the pre-order ends!

Click HERE to buy the record.

From the EXAMINER:

Burlesque costumes are over-the-top sexy. The Pussycat Dolls, Dita Von Tease, VEGAS, smoking hot babes in sexy little outfits that cover next to nothing. These costumes weren't always what they seemed though. A few centuries ago, the outfits had a slightly different purpose. According to the Museum of Sex, merkins (the bottom half of burlesque costumes) were originally created as "pubic wigs" for 15th century prostitutes. The designs helped hide pubic lice and syphilis symptoms. Ladies: share this information with your boyfriend or husband the next time he heads to Vegas with the boys.

Check out this fun profile of hat designer, HEY SAILOR, on FANGO FASHION/CULT COUTURE.

A while ago, we reviewed (and heartily endorsed) the greaser/zombie graphic novel, MOTOR CITY. Here's another interview with Gavin, the book's creator, in CARMINE MAGAZINE.

"England's Most Graceful Teaser", marvelous Millie Dollar proudly displays her Bettie tattoo! This globetrottin' burlesque babe is based in Liverpool, but will probably be performing in a town near you! Go to her shows, so you can catch her amazing ink in person!

---

If you have some retro-inspired ink (especially a portrait of Bettie), EMAIL a picture/link and some info!

Bettie Page Blog Recession Buster:
Click HEREto stream The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets now!

From YEP ROC:

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's the mystical masked avengers Los Straitjackets! Los Straitjackets' latest album The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets continues their conquest as the champion luchadores of instrumental rock. With the heroic efforts of Eddie Angel, Daddy-O Grande, Pedro Del Mar and Teen Beat, the world renowned kings of Chopsville are set to release one of their most remarkable albums to date.

The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets features 13 tracks of future vintage sounds straight from planet Straitjacket. Each CD package includes exclusive trading cards featuring the secret identities of Los Straitjackets along with information on their superhuman characteristics. Comic book panels detailing the adventures of LS provide clues to how the heroes acquired their now legendary powers.

With well over a decade of experience under their utility belts, the instrumental rockers' 14th album finds the band in classic form. Do not succumb to the evil temptations of mediocrity! Check out Los Straitjackets' amazing journey to save the world one riff at a time!

Pre-Order The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets and be entered to win a set of FOUR official Los Straitjackets masks and the Los Straitjackets logo medallion! Click HERE to buy the record.

Check out INKED for a great Sailor Jerry article. (There's also an article on MySpace phenom METAL SANAZ.)

In a recent interview with the NEW YORK TIMES, actress ROSARIO DAWSON mentions how she molded her character in QUENTIN TARANTINO'S "DEATH PROOF" to be an homage to BETTIE. Given Quentin's own homage in PULP FICTION, I always figured that was something he determined about the character, but, evidently not. Go Rosario!

NT TIMES:Growing up, did you watch a lot of movies?

ROSARIO DAWSON: Some. But when I was 16, I saw ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’ over and over. I came home from school and watched it every day — five times in one week. Everything about that movie was remarkable to me. It was inspiring. Three years ago, I got to work with Quentin [Tarantino, who wrote and directed ‘‘Reservoir Dogs’’] on ‘‘Death Proof.’’ I had to audition three times for him — I sold myself so hard and he finally gave me the part. I cut my bangs really short for that movie. It was my homage to Bettie Page. I wanted to dye my hair a cranberry color, but homage to Bettie Page. I wanted to dye my hair a cranberry color, but Quentin drew the line there.

I'm sure everyone knows about Ron Ashton of THE STOOGES and Lux Interior of THE CRAMPS passing away, but I missed the news about Andy DeMize, drummer of NEKROMANTIX and THE ROCKETZ, both frickin' amazing bands. He was only 25 years old and died in a car accident, making it all the more tragic. Read more, courtesy of the OC REGISTER.

I suppose it's par for the course... when the musicians and other artists that inspire and thrill you are all did their signature works forty, fifty, sixty years ago, the loss of those groundbreakers and trendsetters will occur more and more frequently. The "Million Dollar Quartet" is down to one living member... and, frighteningly, so are the Ramones. Punk and the "new wave of rockabilly" is now forty years in the past. Hell, even the 90's swing and ska revivals are fifteen years ago. It's important to remember those that did, saw, conquered and then moved on, but, Lord, do they all have to happen in the same few weeks?

And, even given all of this, memorializing someone YOUNGER than you is just depressing.

Okay, slight soapbox time... Our new Prez is going to try to tackle health care reform. People will hew and cry about socializing medicine and how it's the death of America. I'd like to point out that for a normal, working, touring musician without a day job, getting health care is expensive-to-impossible. Add the generally unhealthy lifestyles... travel, sleep cycles always whacked out, bad road food, performing in smokey rooms in areas that don't have a smoking ban (not including the propensity for drug and alcohol abuse, as that's self-inflicted)... it's no wonder we're losing our greatest cultural icons decades younger than we lose the average accountant or, say, Senator (who always manage to bitch about others getting what they give themselves). As we hear about health care reform, I'm gonna see if it makes it easier for the average gigging punk rocker to get a check-up and maybe play for a decade or two longer than they otherwise could.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Been reworking some things behind the scenes, hoping to streamline and prettify the blog.

I couldn't not mention this fairly amazing lookin' book, which I have yet to read...


Tiki Mugs; Cult Artifacts of Polynesian Pop by Jay Strongman, forward by
Holden Westland of Tiki Farm

Join us at La Luz de Jesus for the much anticipated release and signing party for “Tiki Mugs; Cult Artifacts of Polynesian Pop.” Author Jay Strongman, Tiki Farm’s Holden Westland and many mug artists will be on hand to sign the book. Tiki Farm will be unveiling some new limited edition Tiki mugs and we'll be serving up scrumptious Mai – Tais.

Tiki style is more popular than ever, and there are more collectors than ever peering out from the torches and palm trees. Dive head first, shrunken or otherwise, into a Polynesian Pop world of incredible ceramics, from vintage mid-century modern designs, to the collector mugs of today. The book features all the major manufacturers – Tiki Farm, Munktiki, Porcelanas Pavón, Gecko’z South Sea Arts and more along with the top artists including Shag, Bosko, Crazy Al, Ocea Otica, Squid and Tiki Diablo. Written by Tiki historian and renowned DJ Jay Strongman, this resource highlights the history of the Tiki mug from its original heyday in the 1950’s to today. An essential purchase for specialists, the photos and descriptions of styles such as the Frankentiki and the Monkey Mugstack will provide brilliant inspiration for those new to collecting.

Tiki Farm is the world's largest manufacturer of Tiki mugs and has reinvigorated the mug scene both with their retail line and the revitalization of custom mugs for bars & restaurants across the globe which all but disappeared back in the 1970's. Holden Westland, Tiki Farm owner & founder is widely known in the Tiki community as 'the hardest working man in Tiki" and is credited by most as being the driving force behind the resurgent Tiki mug scene. Since their inception in 2000, Tiki Farm is fast approaching a total of 1,000 different, unique designs produced to-date and sales in excess of 1,000,000 mugs.

“Tiki Mugs; Cult Artifacts of Polynesian Pop” by Jay Strongman, forward by Holden Westland, published by Korero, www.korerobooks.com, hard cover, 176 pages, ISBN 9780955339813, $34.95

For So Cal folks, go to the following event...

Saturday, March 7, 2009 6 pm - 9 pm
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243
www.laluzdejesus.com

The Ed Hardy Smart Car.

Discuss.

Tulsa World has the latest and greatest... get the details!

I was reading this over and struck by how comprehensive it was, compared to most of the other published obituaries. In case you haven't read it...

Press Release: Bettie Page Obituary - Issued by CMG Worldwide

Los Angeles, December 11, 2008 – Bettie Page, sweet-smiling legendary 1950s pin-up queen with the killer curves and coal-black bangs, died today of pneumonia at a Los Angeles area hospital. She was 85 years old. She suffered a heart attack one week ago and never regained consciousness. Her popularity as an underground, guilty pleasures phenomenon has continued to soar despite the fact that the reclusive Page disappeared almost a half century ago, leading many to believe that one of the most photographed individuals of the 20th century was already dead.

As the model who many have argued raised cheesecake to an art, Page combined exuberant, wide-eyed innocence with confident, sometimes aggressive sexuality. VANITY FAIR praised the playfully seductive Page as “our Uber-pin-up.” The NEW YORK TIMES has declared that today “her star shines more brightly than it did in her brief heyday from 1950 to 1957.” PLAYBOY immortalized Page as one of its inaugural centerfolds and recently named her “the model of the century, yet she remains one of its best kept secrets.” In a recent TVGuide.com poll, Bettie Page was voted the “ultimate sex goddess,” outscoring others such as Marilyn Monroe.
Born on April 22, 1923 in Nashville, Tennessee, Bettie (spelled “Betty” on her birth certificate) Mae Page was the second child of six born to Walter Roy Page and Edna Mae Pirtle. The family was poor, moved often, and as a child, Page frequently found it necessary to take charge of her siblings. On several occasions they were dispatched to an orphanage. Life was hard. They were raised in the Church. Page owed her extraordinary looks and high intelligence to her parents, but it was a mixed blessing. Her mother did not want her. Her father molested her.

Page and her two sisters grew up movie fans who enjoyed acting out memorable scenes from whatever “picture show” they had just been to see. “I’ve been a movie hound my whole life,” Page said. “That’s how I started learning to pose, when my little sisters asked me to mimic photos of movie stars we’d seen in the magazines and newspapers.” They would experiment with different hairdos and makeup styles. At an early age Page learned to sew at the local community center; it was a skill with a practical application years later when she designed and made her own costumes, lingerie and bikinis to wear while modeling. She was the salutatorian of her high school graduating class. She was also program director of the dramatics club, secretary-treasurer of the student council, co-editor of the school’s newspaper and yearbook, and voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her classmates.

Her own mother’s jealousy cost Page a scholarship to Vanderbilt University. Instead she earned a 1944 Bachelor of Arts degree in education from Peabody College in Tennessee. It was an uncommon achievement for a woman at that time. She tried teaching school, but her heart-breaking good looks made it impossible for the kids in class to focus on anything else but their pretty teacher. “I couldn’t control my students,” she would say with an irresistible wink, “especially the boys!” Two decades later Page returned to Peabody to work on her master’s degree.

There wasn’t anyone anywhere quite like Bettie Page. She thought for herself. She chartered her own course. She was independent. Page was completely self made, bore no prejudice of any kind, and recognized no barrier to personal fulfillment. Always a free spirit, she moved from Tennessee to San Francisco, took her first of several secretarial jobs, but dreamed of movie stardom (her favorites were Bette Davis and Gregory Peck). Plus she hoped for a chance at modeling. In her first work before still cameras, Bettie Page was more than fully clothed; she wore fur coats.

Everywhere she went, whatever she did, people were distracted and dumbstruck by her looks -- the beguiling smile, the raven hair, the flawless figure. Finally in 1945 one of these people arranged for the acting hopeful to visit Hollywood, where, unfortunately, 20th Century-Fox mishandled her screen test. “They did my hair and makeup so that I looked like a caricature of Joan Crawford,” Page recalled in the Southern drawl she never lost, and which Hollywood frowned on. “It was awful. They ran the test for me; I hardly even recognized myself.” She fled the lot when a producer promised a lucrative movie career in exchange for sexual favors. “I didn’t like his looks,” Page said. “I wouldn’t have gone to bed with him anyway. He was a creeeeeeep. He drove off in his big car and scolded me, ‘You’ll be sorry.’ I wasn’t.”
Nor was she interested in the attentions of flamboyant filmmaker, aviator and inventor Howard Hughes, who pursued Page as well. Hughes phoned and had his staff phone her many times, summoning Page regularly on the pretext of wanting to photograph the delicious looking model. She declined every entreaty. “I never returned any of his calls,” said the celebrated pin-up, who surprisingly few could pin down. “I guess people will say I made a mistake. But sex is part of love, and you shouldn’t go around doing it unless you are in love. I certainly didn’t.”

More than once in recent years she did concede that failing to answer a telegram from studio boss Jack Warner about doing a second screen-test at Warner Bros. was the one mistake she most regretted in her life. But her first husband, Billy Neal, was returning home from war in the South Pacific, and Page was focused on trying to save a collapsing marriage.

Living in New York during 1947 after divorcing Neal, one day at the beach Page chanced to meet a police officer named Jerry Tibbs. He had a side interest in photography. It was Tibbs who recommended she should adopt the trademark black bangs. He also aided in compiling her first pin-up portfolio. Of course Page was from the South; Tibbs happened to be black. Page happened to be color blind.

With her tantalizing face and figure, she innocently and perhaps inevitably drifted into cheesecake modeling as a lark, where Page was prolific. Almost immediately she was the ubiquitous face and figure adorning such publications as WINK, EYEFUL, SIR!, HE, SHE, JEST, BARE, STARE, GAZE, VUE, TITTER, SUNBATHING, BEAUTY PARADE, CHICKS AND CHUCKLES and scores more. Her saucy pictures ripped from these magazines decorated offices, lockers, garages and all manner of rooms around the world as if they constituted a new Bettie Page brand of wallpaper. Her image was everywhere, and attracted international attention and notoriety.
In posing for such photos (some by acclaimed fashion photographer Bunny Yeager), many who were witnesses recall that Page seemed to command these sessions the way a movie director would. Without intending to (and without realizing it either), because of her ingenuity and dominant personality, Page was effectively the creative force controlling much of her own work.

“I was generally happy posing, and that seemed to shine through in the pictures,” Page explained. “Nobody knew this, but I used to imagine the camera was my boyfriend, and I was making love to him. I had fun teasing the guy with the camera until he was in sync with whatever mood I was in.”
At a time when Marilyn Monroe was studying at the Actors Studio in Manhattan, Page was doing the same at the renowned Herbert Berghof Studios only blocks away. “I wasn’t trying to be an actress at that time, but I wanted to see if I could really act or not.”
The answer was pretty much, no. Actor Robert Culp taught some of Page’s classes, and did a dramatic one-act play with her. The title was DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS. “She was in way over her head,” Culp remembered. “She was nice, but she was not an actress, and had she continued, her thick Southern accent would have been a problem for her.”

Berghof and his wife, Uta Hagen (both famous exponents of the Stanislavsky method of acting) were impressed by one scene, however, and asked Page what she was drawing upon from her own experience to create the sense of remorse and tragic reality which she was projecting so effectively on stage. Page told them, “I was thinking of all the wicked things I had done, and how God was going to punish me for all my sins.”

On television, the biggest thing Page did was a performance in a skit with the star of THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW. She disliked him. “Oh, Jackie Gleason was a tyrant,” Page declared. “That man was inconsiderate of everyone around him, including Art Carney, Joyce Meadows, the director, I do mean everyone. I never saw such screaming and yelling. Some people think I’m crazy! You should have seen this cad in action…although he was sweet to me!”

The pin-up extraordinaire never exploited her incredible figure to work as a dancer or stripper in clubs, but she did appear in three burlesque films that suggested as much: STRIP-O-RAMA (1953), VARIETEASE (1954), and TEASERAMA (1955). “I was terrible,” Page laughed in recalling these low budget grind-house efforts. She also performed for the camera in countless 8 and 16mm so-called “film loops” exhibited in peep shows and sold through the mail. Running only minutes long, many of these were staged and issued by the brother-and-sister team of Irving and Paula Klaw of Movie Star News in New York.

It was for the Klaws that Page gained infamy posing in bondage. “It was all pretend,” Page explained. “According to my arrangement with the Klaws, you had to do an hour of bondage poses in order to get paid for the other modeling work.” Seeing such photos in recent years (now they seem almost tame), she would laugh and comment, “Oh, I look like a meanie here….But honestly, who could take any of this seriously? I never understood how anyone believed those poses were sexy. To be tied up? I don’t get it.”
Enough did, however, so that Bettie Page quickly became the most photographed woman in the world. There could be no doubt, she was a sensation. THE PAGE CRAZE WAS ON.

“You couldn’t walk by a newsstand without seeing a picture of this gal on one magazine or another,” said Hillard Elkins, who for a time represented the aspiring actress on behalf of the William Morris Agency. Without imagining the consequences on any conscious level, Page eventually found that her provocative images violated all manner of sexual taboos during that more Puritanical time, finally invoking a United States Senate Committee investigation into pornography. She was subpoenaed to appear in a Capitol Hill courtroom presided over by Senator (and presidential hopeful) Estes Kefauver, yet was never called upon to actually testify.
Then by 1958 this young and beautiful pin-ultimate pin-up queen was gone – suddenly vanished from view in the prime of her life. Just like Greta Garbo, like James Dean, like Jean Harlow. Gone. Except that the departure of Bettie Page was a mystery. Where and why did she go? Had she died? Was she hiding? Was she incapacitated? No one knew. Page’s disappearance only served to power her notoriety. Fantastic rumors abounded. For decades, fans searched. Even the hard-hitting investigative television program 60 MINUTES tried doing a story.

It took until the mid-1990s before the truth was finally revealed. While battling some fierce inner demons, Page had secretly fled New York for Florida. In 1958 she underwent a religious epiphany. She totally retreated from the public eye, tried marriage again, and gave her life to Jesus Christ as a born-again Christian, working for Billy Graham’s ministry, among others. Incredibly, as yet another riddle in her complicated stranger-than-fiction life, during this time Page remained completely oblivious of her own profound impact upon America’s fast-changing sexuality and pop culture, not to mention the thriving cottage industry that had arisen around her celebrated image – the issuance of commercial products including Bettie Page action figures, calendars, comic books, lighters, incense, towels, DVDs, T-shirts, key chains, playing cards, lunch boxes, websites, and all manner of memorabilia. IT WAS BETTIEMANIA.

The failure of Page’s third marriage in 1978 precipitated some mental instability, violent mood swings, and serious trouble with the law. The sordid details of these travails are no secret and have now been disclosed in books and the tabloid press. At last in 1992 she left San Bernardino’s Patton State Hospital to emerge from this dark period during which she had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Page was living quietly in seclusion in Los Angeles when she discovered her enormous niche market popularity. Playboy’s Hugh Hefner introduced Page to a Midwest lawyer who is credited with establishing the merchandising and licensing business opportunities for many of the famous icons of the 20th Century. Roesler’s company, CMG Worldwide, was representing several hundred famous personalities, most of whom were deceased, such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Babe Ruth, Malcolm X and others. Roesler quickly turned the reclusive beauty into a “brand” recognized around the world. Clothing lines that featured the “Bettie Page” brand sprung up, as did a store called “Bettie Page” on the Las Vegas Strip. Page became increasingly popular not only here in the United States, but throughout the world. Her website www.BettiePage.com became one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the internet, getting almost ¾ million hits each day.

“She was a remarkable woman,” Roesler reflected, “truly someone that changed the social norms, not only here in this country, but also around the world. While Jackie Robinson was changing the racial attitudes, Bettie Page was changing our attitudes on sex. She became a James Dean type of ‘rebel’ figure as she allowed people to be less inhibited and look at sex in a different way. “

Roesler said her influence will be on the same level as a Marilyn Monroe. “Her undeniable influence will forever remain in fashion, films and merchandising,” Roesler declared. “She was reclusive and private, so without intending to be, without quite understanding how, her modeling work made her a pivotal figure in the sexual revolution that began in the 1950s. I was always flattered by Bettie’s continued trust, and happy to play a role in helping her overcome some financial and personal problems in her later years. To her adoring she will always be remembered as the ‘Queen of Pin-up.’ “

Roesler was at Page’s bedside when she peacefully died on Thursday, failing to regain consciousness following her heart attack eight days earlier.

Wearing a Santa hat and nothing else as Miss January of 1955, Bettie Page, like Marilyn Monroe, had been one of PLAYBOY magazine’s initial Playmate centerfolds during its first year of publication. Monroe fit the magazine’s business model, offering readers the (apparently) wholesome “girl next door.” Despite her sunny smile, Page became instead a puzzling “bad girl next door” cult figure, now representing a sort of collective guilty pleasure for admirers, who are not just men.

Images of Bettie Page continue to inspire imitation by curious young girls who somehow – probably through the internet – discover this “Dark Angel” whose personality reflected the lethal combination of sweet apple pie, as well as dangerous forbidden fruit. Judging by the hundreds of millions of hits registered at her authorized website, the magnetic appeal of Bettie Page to young men, and women, appears to be timeless.

“Young women write me untold numbers of letters,” Page explained in 2005. “They look up to me. They thank me for helping them see how they can be themselves, or how they can reinvent themselves, assert themselves, lose their inhibitions, and come out of their shells. Of course just posing for pictures I never intended to do any part of that, but I am gratified to see that what I did so long ago has meant something to so many.”

Apparently what resonates with young women is how Page owned her own sexuality. Whether projecting innocence, or being completely wild and uninhibited, it seemed to be her choice, and either choice, wholesome or edgy, was fine with her, and she embraced them both. She was confident her audience did as well.

Hugh Hefner says the appearance of Bettie Page in PLAYBOY was a milestone, and that “she became, in time, an American icon, her winning smile and effervescent personality apparent in every pose. A kinky connection was added by Irving Klaw’s spanking, fetish and bondage photos, which became part of the Bettie Page mystique; they were playful parodies that are now perceived as the early inspiration for Madonna’s excursions into the realm of sexual perversion.”

The fashion designers, Madonna, and others can copy the fetish behavior, the bangs and the bullets bras, but only the spontaneous and unpredictable Bettie Page herself was able to project the unique and volatile combination of the playful nice girl -- along with the perilous one. Wholesome innocence one moment, dangerous dominance the next. That quality defined the Bettie Page persona, as well the flesh and blood person few people were fortunate enough to know. Quietly, steadily, old black and white photos of Bettie Page have continued to stimulate tributes in the form of books, websites, fan clubs, documentary films, and countless licensed products.

Two examples of how Bettie Page has been re-introduced to new generations of eager young fans: First, Dave Stevens created a comic book hero called “The Rocketeer,” with a love interest clearly inspired by Bettie Page; Disney adapted it as a big budget, same-named motion picture vehicle for Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly. Stevens, recently deceased, became one of Page’s most devoted friends, one of the few she could trust. It was Stevens who escorted Bettie Page to the Playboy Mansion for a private 35mm screening of THE ROCKETEER in 1994. She had never seen the film before. She loved it.

Second example: the noted erotic pin-up artist Olivia, who has been painting Bettie Page for a quarter century (in art books, for PLAYBOY, on limited edition posters, etc.), was the first to successfully integrate her fetish imagery for a high fashion licensee, Fiorucci Jeans. Olivia offered this assessment of the Bettie Page phenomenon on the occasion of her passing: “From Mona Lisa to Marilyn Monroe, pinup icons fascinate, because no one can explain the ethereal nature of their beauty. It comes down to creating magic. Bettie was the action hero of pin-up. Although the fantasy world of fetish/bondage existed in some form since the beginning of time, Bettie reigns as the iconic figurehead, for no star existed in this realm before her. Marilyn had her predecessors, Bettie did not. It was a privilege to know and love her.”

Celebrities and supermodels who have attempted to leverage the “magic” and pose as the naughty and nice Bettie Page include Madonna, Shalom Harlow, Uma Thurman, Janice Dickinson, Dasha Astafieva, Jenna Jameson, Dita von Teese, Farrah Fawcett, Eva Herzigova, Demi Moore, Laetitia Costa, Christy Turlington, even Renee Zellweger, to name a few.

Pop culture critic and author Mikal Gilmore has characterized the appeal of Bettie Page in this way: “No matter how much you stare or dream or pray, you could never get enough of what it is that her face and body seem to promise.”

Despite having worked with but a single competent photographer, despite having thousands of her photographs destroyed on purpose following the congressional hearings, and despite so many extant photos surviving only as inferior copies of the originals, the transcendent beauty and playful yet dangerous personality of Bettie Page trumps all else and continues to inspire documentary films, designers’ fashions, artists’ fetishes, and fans’ fantasies.

For those who understood who Bettie Page was, no explanation for any of this is necessary. For those who did not know, probably no explanation was, or is, possible.
Late in life she shunned the public, and guarded her privacy. But that was always true of the way Page lived, even during her modeling days.

Near the end, she hoped people would remember her as she looked when she was young, and for being someone who, in her words, “changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form. Being nude was something I enjoyed, it felt so natural. There is nothing disgraceful concerning nudity unless one is being promiscuous about it. Don’t forget the Bible says when God created Adam and Eve, they were stark naked. Who can argue with that?”

Bettie Page was married and divorced three times, bore no children, and of her five brothers and sisters, is survived by Jack Page of Nashville, Tennessee, and Joyce Page of Atlanta, Georgia.

When Bettie Page left the modeling scene, she sought privacy, read widely, enjoyed classic movies, mastered fields which interested her (including homeopathic medicine and nutrition), and lived out her life as a devoted Christian. Many times she told friends, “My long term goal is to live a healthy hundred years.”

She made occasional visits to the Playboy Mansion to watch old movies and attend private parties with her friend Hugh Hefner and her agent, Roesler. She was humbled at all the attention she got five years ago, when she attended Playboy’s 50th Anniversary party at the Playboy Mansion with Anna Nicole Smith. Both Smith and Page made a grand entrance and enjoyed the special attention they received. That evening they were photographed together in what was said to be the only time in the past 50 years that Page allowed her photograph to be taken.

Her story is an impossible incursion of near misses, bad luck, contradictions and lost opportunities. Page was strong-willed, and fiercely independent. She battled long and hard against both physical and mental illnesses. From the 1950s and beyond, when strangers would recognize her, she would deny her identity. “Bettie Page?” she would respond, “Who is that?” And yet to friends, she always told the truth, and would candidly (and sometimes endlessly!) discuss any aspect of her long life, including any conceivable question one might pose with respect to sexual activity. And under the spell of those sparkling blue-gray Bettie Page eyes (at any age), sometimes one was too distracted to even process what she was saying.

Funeral services will be Friday afternoon with a private service and burial at Westwood Cemetery a few feet away from her blonde sex icon counterpart, Marilyn Monroe.
For more on the life and legacy of Bettie Page, visit www.BettiePage.com.

Congratulations to Bexy James, the winner of our 2008 Holiday Pin-up Contest!

A copy of Brian Setzer Orchestra -- The Ultimate Collection: Recorded Live
will be sent her way, courtesy of Surfdog Records.

...and other free Christmas MP3s at AMAZON.COM! Grab 'em while they're free!

Give a gift that keeps on giving! As we enjoy the benefits of a happy, relatively secure homeland this Christmas, why not sate your hunger for some good ol' American "cheesecake" and help wounded veterans at the same time!

Model and entrepreneur Gina Elise of Redlands, California has just put her third annual PIN-UPS FOR VETS calendar! Get it for yourself, a loved one or buy a bunch to distribute to a veterans' hospital near you! Not only are these classy, classic pin-up photos the perfect way to make 2009 more merry, Gina will also PERSONALIZE your purchase with a message and her autograph! She also carries POSTERS and T-SHIRTS, which she will also sign.

Start 2009 off right -- buy a PIN-UPS FOR VETS calendar and know that your money is going to help our brave wounded warriors!

See Gina Elise interviewed on FOX 11 LOS ANGELES

ORDER NOW!

Go to BETTIEPAGE.COM for all official news releases and reactions from some of those closest to her.

From the staff of the BETTIE PAGE BLOG, this is a sad day which we are choosing to use as a time to reflect why, 50 years after her height of activity as a model, we are still enthralled with Bettie's image. This blog began a few months ago, when Bettie's health was already in some decline. Knowing we may not be blessed with her presence much longer, we decided to focus the blog on the fans and the community, in hopes that when, inevitably, she left us, we would have created a space for fans of all stripes to come together and express how the force of her personality, speaking through these images, many shot by amateur photographers, has reached out across decades to affect the way we look at ourselves and our world. The world would be a different place if Bettie had never lived. Although she never was able to fully understand or appreciate her impact, it is clear to anyone who looks for it -- Bettie's legacy is profound, far-reaching and growing.

When a woman can reject society's view of beauty and, instead, discover and choose to celebrate her own, Bettie lives.

When mature adults can celebrate their sexuality with a sense of fun instead of fear and shame, Bettie lives.

When a person can feel that faith and self-expression aren't mutually exclusive, Bettie lives.

When an outsider of any description feels the power of their uniqueness instead of the pain of society's disdain, Bettie lives.

So, even on a day where we are saddened by Bettie's death, we want to encourage every one to comment on how Bettie lives on in you.

Pop Icon Pin-Up Bettie Page Critical After Heart Attack

Associated Press

December 5, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Bettie Page, one of the most notable models of the 20th century, is hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles.

Mark Roesler, Page's agent and attorney, says the 85-year-old is "critically ill."

He says she suffered a heart attack Tuesday and remains hospitalized.

He would not comment further on her condition.


*Sorry, we don't know any more than the press does!*

http://www.citypaper.com/arts/review.asp?rid=14165 A fun to read review of the new book, Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search For The Greatest Invention That Never Was by Mac Montandon from Baltimore's CITYPAPER.

A National Post article about the precarious place of graphic novels as they try to break out of the comic book ghetto.

Article on Olivia from the LA TIMES.

Here are a few articles on sometimes Bettie Page impersonator Joey Arias from GAY CITY NEWS, TIME OUT NEW YORK and THE NEW YORK TIMES.

A fashion article that draws a line between Bettie Page bangs and an embrace of existentialism! Interesting to say the least!

THE YAKIMA HERALD does a hard-hitting investigative piece on the pernicious threat of BREWLESQUE... coffee served by lovely ladies in pin-up garb.

Did anybody in the UK see the burlesque-themed movie MAKE IT HAPPEN? Is it as bad as it looks?

PAIGEY! THE ART OF PAIGE PUMPHREY is a visual "greatest hits" of the art of this rockabilly-infused comic book artist. Paigey's absolutely adorable figures are plump and round and uncomplicated, almost as if created for animation. Despite the "line against curve" figure drawing, she injects enough specificity to create a sense of reality about even her most cartoonish figures.

Where Paigey shines is in allowing her characters to radiate personality. Some artists come up with one great "character" and then swap hair and props to stretch that character into a career. Paigey can use a consistent stylistic approach on a series of figures (as she does in her wonderful portraits of roller derby teams) and by squashing, stretching or shifting basic anatomy, creates fully-realized, totally differentiated characters that genuinely come alive on the page. For this reason, it's easy to see why she is increasingly in demand for her stylized commissioned portrait. When being a Paigey character looks as much fun as it does in this book, who wouldn't want to be one???

If a fault could be found, it's not with the art, which, from the tributes to EC horror and 50's romance comics, the many 'toon tributes to roller derby girls, pop culture figures such as Kat Von D, comic characters like old skool Kitty Pryde (inclusion of her purple dragon Lockheed earns her nerd points) and scores of captivating designs for a goth/vampire comic, "Pearly Whites", is all inspiring. Rather, the slim volume has almost no written copy -- not on the back, not a foreward, nothing to put this grouping of commissions, character sheets and posters into context. If it ever goes back to press or when Paigey is ready to fill another book, she should consider adding some commentary.

The bottom line is that if Walt Kelly and Bruce Timm both listened to Gene Vincent, they might draw rockabilly boys, pin-up girls and roller derby queens with as much sass and panache as Paigey!


PAIGEY! THE ART OF PAIGE PUMPHREY may be purchased directly from the artist, via her MySpace page.

Imelda May has some serious vocal chops and her songs are all constructed around showing off her pipes. Clearly, this is an artist who has done her homework (evidently, she was the vocalist for a roots rock band for seven years prior to going solo). Like a subtle perfume, her various vocal stylings hint and whisper at sources of inspiration... full-throated, husky, imperiousness that Wanda Jackson couldn't handle better, whispered laments that could move Billie Holiday or sultry come-hithers that would have Petty Lee swinging her hips. The success of Imelda May is that none of these influences overpower her own talents, and it is precisely this ease as moving from country to jazz to pop (even if "pop" music as it hit turntables a half a century ago) attitudes that makes her music such a delight to behold. The music is tasteful, featuring a full band but restrained arrangements, recorded to sound warm and alive -- as proven by the "live room" sound of the thumping upright base that opens "Johnny Got a Boom Boom".

Joe Brown blends US and UK influences to create a satisfying roots rock sound. The clean, modern and full production stands in contrast to much of the ethic of today's retro and alt-country approach. Instead, the work sounds either like when past country luminaries tried to sound "relevant" in the 80's and 90's (think the Cash/Nelson/Jennings/Kristofferson supergroup THE HIGHWAYMEN or Carl Perkins' star-studded 1996 effort, GO CAT GO) or when 60's and 70's rock gods grab a mandolin or bust out a shuffle lick (think TRAVELING WILBURYS). The picking is more crisp than ferocious, but it'll get your toe tapping.

The Honeybees - genial, witty ditties that rise on the wings of high harmonies and the sweet (if occasionally pitchy) female dual vocals of Barbara Clifford and Rachel Decker, ably abetted by sunny playing that nods to many styles found in the pre-British Invasion hit parade.

Since we featured a glowing review of Dave Alvin's BEST OF THE HIGHTONE YEARS, here's some "equal time" for his no-less-talented brother, PHIL ALVIN, the lead singer of THE BLASTERS. THE RED BANK ORBIT, from Red Bank, NJ, caught up with him for a fun interview.

JODY REYNOLDS, the cat who brought us "Endless Sleep" has joined the protagonist of his 1950's "teen tragedy" hit. No teen, he, Reynolds lived to see 75, having played on for decades, as well as carving out a successful career in real estate.

For more:
LA TIMES
LA WEEKLY
AZ REPUBLIC
LISTEN TO JODY REYNOLDS


Finally, a little Q&A with Jim "Reverend Horton Heat" Heath, in which he talks about having "Psychobilly Freakout" on GUITAR HERO II and how recording a great record does not necessarily make you a musician.

Tonight, THE SUNDANCE CHANNEL is airing a documentary entitled CARNY tonight at 9 PM. CARNY is about the modern-day, anachronistic life of circus and sideshow folk. The documentary is spun from the amazing photo essay by Virginia Lee Hunter.

Here's a trailer for the doc:

CARNY Documentary trailer

Those Poor Bastards - "Gothic Country" practitioners. Their site sports a quote from no less than Hank III. Imagine Jon Spencer of JOHN SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION putting his lo-fi/overly distorted recording ethic to early NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS (think "Tupelo" as an idea of what you'll find here). Other tracks take the dark carnival ride closer to Tom Waits territory.

The Matadors A swingin' rhythm section helps sell the Matadors' blend of cheeky, defiantly un-P.C. lyrics delivered in an over-the-top psycho-hillbilly faux Elvis vocal style. The thematics and beat seems indebted to the MISFITS, but the music is much more "legit" rockin' rockabilly, like early LIVING END. Judging from the braggadocios, Satan-laced bio, this is a band that knows how to take the music... and ONLY the music... seriously.

The COLUMBUS DISPATCH printed a funny article positing what tattoos would "toughen up" cubicle dwellers:

If young women with vague tribal designs on their lower backs and guys with the image of Chief Wahoo's face on their calves prove anything, it's this: Tattoos are no longer just for prisoners, the Russian Mafia, outlaw bikers, pro basketball players, rockabilly bassists and millionaire rappers.

But one subculture has yet to fully embrace illustrated skin: the gang of the white-collar office workers...

READ THE REST -- IT'S FUNNY!

I found a thoughtful blog post about how Confederate iconography is a slap in the face to everything Rockabilly stands for -- the mixing of black and white musical concepts in a time and place when "race mixing" was violently opposed. As we reflect on our first black President, it's time to better honor Rockabilly's role in changing racial attitudes at a crucial time in our nation's history.

The racially-segregated world longed for by the Stars and Bars Confederacy would inhibit the multi-racial development of rock'n'roll. Real rockabillies were the enemies of that order. They acted in rebellion against then-prevailing strictures.

The phenomenon of the individual daring to think for her or himself and rebelling against imposed values undergirds today's authentic rockabilly community, just as it fired the original.

Read the rest of the article by DC LARSON, a freelance writer and current CD Review Editor for Rockabilly Magazine.