#17: Doc Pomus Comes Back/Part 2

THE GREAT BLUESMAN TELLS IT STRAIGHT

Doc Pomus no longer had to cater to the teenage rock ’n’ roll market. He wrote sophisticated songs for adults. In his final years, he mentored dozens of singers, discovered bands like Roomful of Blues and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and wrote the best lyrics of his life.

Episode Links

Doc’s website

AKA Doc Pomus, the documentary

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

(Music bed under “Mr. Nobody:” “Highway 61” by Josh Alan Band)

Doc Pomus

Josh Alan Friedman, Peggy Bennett, Larry "Ratso" Sloman, and Doc Pomus at The Bitter End in New York City

Josh Alan Friedman, Josh’s mother Ginger, Doc, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Peggy Bennett, at Bitter End after Josh’s show, 1989

Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman at the Brill Building

Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman at the Brill Building

Songwriter Doc Pomus

Uncle Doc, courtesy of Shirlee Hauser

#16: Doc Pomus Comes Back/Part 1

THE EARLY STIGMA OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

After a dormant decade, the great songwriter Doc Pomus was back in business by the late 1970s. I became his sidekick, entrenched in Doc’s late-night rock ‘n’ roll whirl, where he held court like a Buddha. He was amazed that so many of his songs became iconic anthems in a genre once vilified as teenage junk.

Episode Links

AKA Doc Pomus documentary trailer

Blues in the Red (Doc’s early 78’s)

Song under Sinatra quote: “Fat Back,” by Josh Alan Band (unreleased)

 Doc Pomus at the Pied Piper in New York, 1947

Doc Pomus at the Pied Piper in New York, 1947

Late night at the Lone Star Cafe: Josh’s wife Peggy, Doc, (unidentified singing protege), Josh, 1982

Late night at the Lone Star Cafe: Josh’s wife Peggy, Doc, (unidentified singing protege), Josh, 1982

 French Elvis Lp. Mort Shuman became a pop star in France and thus received top billing here.

French Elvis Lp. Mort Shuman became a pop star in France and thus received top billing here.

Still from documentary, AKA Doc Pomus: Josh, Doc, (unidentified), Ahmet Ertegun

Still from documentary, AKA Doc Pomus: Josh, Doc, (unidentified), Ahmet Ertegun

#15: The Fall of Al Goldstein/Part 2

Screw magazine cover, photo of sailor kissing nurse

FROM PARADISE TO THE GUTTER

The Great Pornographer went from Upper East Side family man/pornographer-next-door to Bowery bum. The First Amendment hero became destitute. But he never lost his appetite for pussy and pastrami.

Episode Links

I Goldstein: My Screwed Life, by Al Goldstein and Josh Alan Friedman

When Sex Was Dirty, by Josh Alan Friedman

Tales of... podcast, Al Goldstein's home in Pompano Beach

Al’s Pompano Beach mansion, with the 11-foot finger that welcomed boats on the intracoastal waterway

Al Goldstein in his office, Screw magazine

Goldstein’s New York office

Al Goldstein and porn star Ron Jeremy with porn starlets

Beach Blanket Hippos: Goldstein and Ron Jeremy on Al’s beachfront

Tales of... podcast episode

Screw ’69, front row: Jim Buckley, Goldstein, and 18-year-old Steve Heller, who would next become The New York Times art director for 33 years

John Lennon and Yoko Ono reading Screw magazine

John and Yoko’s Screw interview, 1969

Screw magazine cover, photo of sailor kissing nurse

Terry Southern in Screw #801. Cover: Julius Zimmerman

Screw magazine illustrated art cover

Hitler’s Worst Nightmare: Screw’s interview with surviving Third Reich architect, Albert Speer, with Goldstein as “Diddler on the Roof .” Cover: Curt Hoppe.

#14: The Fall of Al Goldstein/Part 1

Screw Magazine Cover illustration of Al Goldstein

THE GREAT PORNOGRAPHER GETS SCREWED

With the creation of Screw and Midnight Blue, Al Goldstein liberated sex from the shadows of shame and illegal obscenity. He had no idea what it would lead to today. But in his era, the sexual revolution was a cry for liberation and the laws against sex came tumbling down in his wake.

Episode Links

I Goldstein: My Screwed Life, by Al Goldstein and Josh Alan Friedman

When Sex Was Dirty, by Josh Alan Friedman

Screw Magazine Cover art by R. Crumb

Screw magazine, #1,024, “The Weird Sex Life of R. Crumb”, illustrated by cartoonist R. Crumb

Screw Magazine Cover illustration of Al Goldstein

Screw magazine, #735, “Is God Gay?”, illustration of Al Goldstein as God by Curt Hoppe

New York Times reports on Al Goldstein sentencing.

“Al Goldstein donned a fake prison outfit before his sentencing yesterday.” New York Times, 2002

AL GOLDSTEIN AND ADAM CLAYTON POWELL

Goldstein with legendary Harlem congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, in late ‘60s.

Al Goldstein, 1949 at his bar mitzvah

Al Goldstein’s bar mitzvah, 1949. In three years, he would wear the same undersized suit for his first hooker.

#13: Mel Shestack: Magazine Management Trickster

AN EDITOR’S EDITOR

A legend among his peers at the old men’s adventure magazines, Mel Shestack made people believe the impossible. And anyone who fell for his “gentle cons” felt privileged afterward.

Episode Links

Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos

It’s A Man’s World

True Action Magazine Cover

True Action, one of the many magazines published each month by Magazine Management

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Bruce Jay Friedman at Magazine Management

Mel Shestack presenting a fake mock-up cover to Bruce Jay Friedman at Bruce’s Magazine Management retirement in 1966.

(photo: Jules Siegel)

Cartoon drawn by Mel Shestack. Letter to Josh Alan Friedman

A Mel Shestack cartoon on a letter to Josh

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