READ
Sexy time -- for a price
Writer David Henry Sterry proclaims, "I was a birthday present for an 82-year-old grandmother."
That's also the title of his essay in the new anthology "Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money and Sex."
Edited by Sterry and R. J. Martin Jr., the collection proudly proclaims that "the only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money."
Except for "art-porn priest-ess" Annie Sprinkle and Xaviera Hollander (she of "Happy Hooker" fame), the voices here aren't celebrities. Instead, the contributors include Ph.D.s, soccer moms, prisoners, "$2,500-a-night call girls" and others who spill ink into memoirs, rants, confessions, journalism and poetry.
The book is available now on Amazon from Soft Skull Press.
WATCH
MTV gets 'Pranked'
Ever since Og the Neanderthal unleashed a live velociraptor in his neighbor's cave, humankind has enjoyed a good prank.
When we humans became smart enough and sophisticated enough to invent television, the practical joker side of our species wasted no time in pranking people and displaying the results on the boob tube. Boomers will recall Allen Funt's "Candid Camera," while the MTV generation embraced Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd."
Now comes "Pranked," an MTV series that collects practical jokes that were created, staged, filmed and posted online by ... um, we the people. That is, amateurs.
A promo clip of "Pranked" leans heavily on Three Stooges-type, physical jokes (lots of unexpected breaking furniture and surprise blasts of liquids).
Check out "Pranked" at 10:30 p.m. Aug. 27 on MTV to see if the series lives up to its self-proclaimed billing as showcasing "the best pranks ever caught on camera and posted online."
LISTEN
Wainwright gets loud with forgotten legend
Something sadly, poetically ironic is happening on Loudon Wainwright III's new album, which includes songs by, and originals inspired by, country singer Charlie Poole.
Loudon who? Poole who?
Exactly.
Even Wainwright's devoted cult following will admit he's far off the radar of today's music landscape, despite having penned that immortal 1973 No. 16 hit, "Dead Skunk." As for Poole, Wainwright's Web site claims he was a legendary singer and banjo picker who lived from 1892 to 1931, and that he amassed a "canon" during his time on this planet.
The evidence is on Wainwright's new album, "High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project." The 30-track, two-CD work includes plenty of swing, acoustic blues, country, ragtime and folky-jazzy type stuff ... the forgotten singing about the forgotten -- but Wainwright makes it come alive.
The CD is available at Amazon.
Sexy time -- for a price
Writer David Henry Sterry proclaims, "I was a birthday present for an 82-year-old grandmother."
That's also the title of his essay in the new anthology "Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money and Sex."
Edited by Sterry and R. J. Martin Jr., the collection proudly proclaims that "the only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money."
Except for "art-porn priest-ess" Annie Sprinkle and Xaviera Hollander (she of "Happy Hooker" fame), the voices here aren't celebrities. Instead, the contributors include Ph.D.s, soccer moms, prisoners, "$2,500-a-night call girls" and others who spill ink into memoirs, rants, confessions, journalism and poetry.
The book is available now on Amazon from Soft Skull Press.
WATCH
MTV gets 'Pranked'
Ever since Og the Neanderthal unleashed a live velociraptor in his neighbor's cave, humankind has enjoyed a good prank.
When we humans became smart enough and sophisticated enough to invent television, the practical joker side of our species wasted no time in pranking people and displaying the results on the boob tube. Boomers will recall Allen Funt's "Candid Camera," while the MTV generation embraced Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd."
Now comes "Pranked," an MTV series that collects practical jokes that were created, staged, filmed and posted online by ... um, we the people. That is, amateurs.
A promo clip of "Pranked" leans heavily on Three Stooges-type, physical jokes (lots of unexpected breaking furniture and surprise blasts of liquids).
Check out "Pranked" at 10:30 p.m. Aug. 27 on MTV to see if the series lives up to its self-proclaimed billing as showcasing "the best pranks ever caught on camera and posted online."
LISTEN
Wainwright gets loud with forgotten legend
Something sadly, poetically ironic is happening on Loudon Wainwright III's new album, which includes songs by, and originals inspired by, country singer Charlie Poole.
Loudon who? Poole who?
Exactly.
Even Wainwright's devoted cult following will admit he's far off the radar of today's music landscape, despite having penned that immortal 1973 No. 16 hit, "Dead Skunk." As for Poole, Wainwright's Web site claims he was a legendary singer and banjo picker who lived from 1892 to 1931, and that he amassed a "canon" during his time on this planet.
The evidence is on Wainwright's new album, "High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project." The 30-track, two-CD work includes plenty of swing, acoustic blues, country, ragtime and folky-jazzy type stuff ... the forgotten singing about the forgotten -- but Wainwright makes it come alive.
The CD is available at Amazon.
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