Another First from '72 (postdated) [This post is under construction.]

 If I'm to be truthful.

 

Sometime mid September.

Men's Magazine.

Adult entertainment.

Porn, Pornography, Pornographic materials, 

Sex

Legal adulthood 

Addiction

Coming of age 

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History:

As early as three bodily aware morally aware sensually aware

1958 Uncle’s Playboy Magazine which my twin sister and I discovered together

1960 Dad’s secret pin up calendars 

The Nextdoor gas station office my twin and I could look down and into from the second story back porch of our house. The walls were laden with erotic pinups.

1964 my twin finding a way to jiggle the key to dad’s locker and break in, then calling me over to the trove of porn material within including 8mm movies. Oh, and that 1960 calendar was still there! For the next six years we will return to the locker time and again, though my sister’s interest will wane.

1965 my eldest sister turns 18 and brings home Playboy. Two years later my other sister turns 18 and brings home her boyfriend’s stuff.

July 26, 1968 I become born again. Now the cognitive dissonance starts in earnest.

1970 my twin drifts away from the material, because as she later put it, she was learning it (sex) first hand. She was already dating.  So the porn was redundant and unnecessary.

September, 1972 Of legal age I buy my first three adult magazines. 

1972 ~ 1995 my porn addiction is rampant. My ethical battles are “spiritual”.

By the mid 90’s I leave the faith, but my moral quandary continues. Only now it is along social political lines. What is sexual agency in the light of adult porn, the male gaze, looking, patriarchy, exploitation?[Complicating matters is remembering that my twin was also drawn to porn.]

2026 72 and a virgin still, I still don’t know what to make of sex, erotica, and sexuality.

Up until September 2021, I use to have the entire run of  Oui Magazine from its premiere issue thru 1982 (its last year under Playboy ownership). Most of Playboy. The first three years of Club A bit of Penthouse. Over the years I collected hundreds of back issues stemming from the late 1950's all the way until the present decade of all the popular labels like Adam, Calvacade, Club, Club International, Gallery, Mayfair, Oui, Playboy, Penthouse, Swank, et cetera.  Sadly, the paradox that I am, I let them all go. I could no longer afford private storage for four fifths of my property: books, periodicals, audio, film, video, art, electronics, furniture, telescopic equipment, editing equipment, stereo components, darkroom paraphernalia, camera gear, et cetera. I had to abandon it all having no choice under the circumstances. I even accidentally lost all my precious childhood art from the fifties to the seventies when I took the wrong storage box by mistake and didn’t catch the error until after I had resettled and the storage unit was by now long cleared of all content. Oh well, one day not too long from now, relatively speaking, the world will be cleared of me. Such is life at 72.

-FIN-

9-15-‘73 Peppy

9-15-‘79 Dad’s stroke, George and Marina wed, as do Mia and Gonzalo.

9-15-‘84 I buy my firs car, a blue Plymouth Valiant*. Its license plate: NEU 915 (If you subtract the middle number 1 from 9 you get 8, and if you subtract the 1 from 5, you get 4. 84! 91584!)

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Pimple

 [Editor’s Note: This article was originally created on 2026-09-15 and has been postdated to reflect current updates and scheduling adjustments.]

     This is my 2026-09-15 comment to a Muir Way Maps' post that appeared on my Facebook page. It was a bas relief of California. Normally, I don't reply to ads but made an exception in this case because of the memory the featured topography evoked.

 

The State of California (cropped). Courtesy of Very Good Maps

    I wrote: 

     "The first "physicality" that caught my eye in grade school, looking at a bas relief, topographic map of California, were the isolated Sutter Buttes rising out of the Central Valley. Years later, when I saw the "world's smallest mountain range" for real, I was agog." 

The Sutter Buttes (detail). Courtesy of Very Good Maps

     That bump, that pimple smack in the middle of a plain between the two mountain ranges. What it must look like from the ground I wondered. However, seeing as I was but a low income child in a urban public grade school located over a hundred miles away (104 miles, straight-line  distance) meant I wasn't going to see the buttes in person any time soon. I would have to another twelve or thirteen years. 

    By then, I had all but forgotten them as my fellow bandmates and I were touring Northern California and heading to our next stop in Yuba City. I remember seating in the passenger seat next to the driver as his van was headed out of the coastal mountain range and down into the Central California Valley. We cleared the last hill and them I saw them, strikingly side lit by late afternoon sun that was settling to the northwest. 

    "Omigod!" I exclaimed! "What? What? answered everyone else in confused alarm. "It's the Buttes! This is my first time seeing them!" Everyone relaxed as I watched the distant range with fascination. I just assumed as a city kid, I would never get out to this part of California. My limited means would confine me to the Bay Area or just the West Coast down to L.A. (actually I once reached San Diego) but hardly inland. Perhaps the others in the the van were more well traveled than I or unimpressed. 

    I was caught by delighted surprise.

    Yet, locating this roadside incident proved to be a challenge. I didn't keep an itinerary. Nor did I have access to a diary. As result of the many of the particulars and certain specific main criteria that had to be met satisfied, I had to triangulate [Google Gemini, on its own, and separate from me came up with same exact same route/coordinates.]

 

 

 

Sutter Buttes from Route 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A closer look at the buttes by photographer Shayne Downs.

 

'Sutter Buttes' -detail- (2024)       Shayne Downs Photography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Clear Lake 20, not Covelo 162 not Interstate 5 not 99

 

 *Unless the A. I. was monitoring my online Google Map activity prior to my putting the question to it, then flattering me by produce an identical result! Hmmm.

Though having examined all the possible major approaches to the Sutter Buttes, this is the only route the stringently satisfies those two key considerations

JPG Exif comments:

Courtesy of Very Good Maps

https://verygoodmaps.com/

'DO NOT PANIC!' (postdated) [This post is under construction.]

 'DO NOT PANIC!'


NOTE: This post was moved* from its original date of 2026-08-23 to make room for a third current event, occurring 2026-08-26, the passing of actor Tim Curry, two days after fellow actress Shelley Fabares, and a day after singer songwriter Dolly Parton.

*It has now been twice moved.

 

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Propositioned (postdated) [This post is under construction.]

 [Originally posted to my Blogger on September 2, 2026, but moved to accommodate more date-specific, September posts.]

   True story.

Background Image: 18th Street at Dolores, San Francisco, (Google Maps street level view).

    Sometime in 1971, I and my pulchritudinous twin sister were crossing 18th Street from Mission High School to Dolores Park on our way home from classes, when a great big Cadillac, turning the corner behind us, stopped.

    The driver, sporting a felt fedora, gangsta leaned toward the window to proposition my sister:

    "Say babe, would ya rather ride in a car with a man or walk with a fool?"

    Whipping around, my twin's spitfire retort was brief, brutal, and blunt.

    "I'd rather walk with a fool than you!"

    The driver, letting out a laugh,, continued up the street.

    "Thanks for the compliment." I remarked.

    It took a second for the realization to penetrate my sister's ire.


😉

Street level image courtesy of Google Maps.

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