Josh Alan Friedman - Tales of Times Square: Expanded Edition

Praise for Tales of Times Square

Friedman manages to paint a devastating portrait of a culture of vice...

Tales of Times Square can be read as a brief for action.

Washington Times

An entertaining obscene postcard of Times Square on the brink.

Village Voice

Amazing stories!

San Francisco Examiner

Short stories that are the best Ive ever seen about Times Square. I couldnt put it down. I recommended [Friedman] for a Pulitzer Prize.

Show Business

Evocative, entertaining, not for the faint-hearted. [Friedmans] no-holds-barred portrait of the porn industry and its workers is intriguing, if a little cold-blooded.

Chicago Sun-Times

Reminiscent of New Yorker writing at its best, but with much more humor.... Unforgettable, and good enough to turn Jimmy Breslin or Studs Terkel pale mauve with envy.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

A fascinating study of life in New York Citys entertainment hub.

Variety

The most compelling reading to come along since the attorney generals report....This book made me want to shower.

Washington Post

By Josh Alan Friedman

Any Similarity

to Persons Living Or Dead

Is Purely Coincidental

(With Drew Friedman)

Warts And All

(With Drew Friedman)

Tales of Times Square

When Sex Was Dirty

I, Goldstein

(With Al Goldstein)

Tales of Times Square 1986, 1993, 2007 by Josh Alan Friedman All rights reserved.

eISBN: 9781936239696

Published by:
Feral House
1240 W. Sims Way Suite 124
Port Townsend. WA. 98368

www.feralhouse.com

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following: Carnival Crossroads: The Story of Times Square by W.G. Rogers and Mildred Weston.
1960 by W.G. Rogers and Mildred Weston Rogers. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc. / Broadway by Brooks Atkinson. 1970 by Brooks Atkinson. Reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Co. / Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce! by Albert Goldman and Lawrence Schiller. 1971, 1973, 1974 by Alskog, Inc. And Albert Goldman. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. / Queen of the Gang Bang originally published under the title Great American Cream Machine in Screw. 1979, reprinted by permission of Screw / Pecker Full of Miracles originally published in Screw. 1981, reprinted by permission of Screw / Seasons Greetings from Long Jean Silver originally published under the title I Cream of Jeannie in Screw. 1982, reprinted by permission of Screw / Rave Up originally published in Screw. 1982, reprinted by permission of Screw / A Schitzy Girl is Like a Melody originally published in Live! 1982, reprinted by permission of Live! / Tales of Times Square originally published in Oui, and contained the following pieces: Yesterdays Cheers Have a Very Short Echo; The Crystal Ball of 42nd Street; In Search of the Longest Stiletto; and material on Oxuzana (contained in Inside the Peeps) and material on Bob Anthony (contained in Old Flesh Agents). 1983, reprinted by permission of Oui / Save Our 42nd Street! originally published in Soho News, 1978.
Tales of Times Square was originally published in a clothbound edition in 1986 by Delacorte Press.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To My Darling Peg

Al Goldstein, Larry Wichman, John Lombardi, Richard Brandes, Richard Jaccoma, Larry Sloman, Gil Reavill, Jeff Goodman, Jay Acton, Susan Moldow, and Paul McCarthy

B.J.F., G.F. and P.L.B. for support

This is a 21st-anniversary edition of Tales of Times Square. More than any neighborhood I can imagine, Times Square is a character itself. It occupies a fifth dimension, with its own molecules and voltage, its own history and sex life, and seemingly has a will of its own. A lot has gone down since the first edition. The New 42nd Street may be the greatest transformation to hit the streets sincefor those who recallthe New Nixon. I address these events in a new Afterword.

Weve also added six chapters from a lesser-known collection, When Sex Was Dirty. I wrote these pieces soon after Tales, and they seem to fit.

The events in Tales took place from 19781984. This was the Golden Age of Pornography, when porn was really dirty. Mom-and-pimp sex enterprises flourished. All the characters are real, with the exception of Dudley Arnholt, composite Times Square masturbator/Everyman of Inside the Peeps.

Save Our 42nd Street was offered as sheer conjecture. The police officers names in Cops and Skells and Pross and Pimps were changed so that they could continue to work in their sensitive positions.

The places are gone; many characters have died. But their ghosts probably still wander 42nd Street, and you never know which face in the crowd might be one of them.

Meanwhile, let us revisit Times Squares nastiest days as a mecca of cheap thrills, ghetto entertainment, and 25-cent fulfillment for our sexually bankrupt masses. Hello, sucker!

Your smart-ass tour guide,

Josh

Izzy Grovethe Ghetto Avenger, as he was once known in the twenties as a top middleweight contenderis bracing himself for the street any day now. Loews Corporation, owners of the old show-biz building on 46th Street off Broadway where Izzys kept a $60-a-month office for seventeen years, is giving him the boot. With the market ripe, Loews wants back this little space. And Izzys become one scared seventy-three-year-old pug.

I got tears in my eyes just talking about it, says Izzy, dabbing under his box glasses with a hankie. They cut my phone, they knock down my door. I live right, I behave myself, Im not a bum. I never been convicted of a crime or felony, Im no tough guy. People that see me, unnerstand, I dont want them to pity me. People put money in mylooka Izzy pulls out a wad of crumpled bills and phone numbersofficials of housing bureaucracy, friends, connectionsbut none of them do any good. His fingers are twisted, nails fungous; his hands have small lacerations, his ears look like doughy biscuits. I dont have to cry to ya, its not pleasant. Sure, if I wanted to I can go ahead and work for fifty bookmakers and ticket hustlers. My wife, Alice, she rest in peace, always told me that instead of being a tough guy, a shylock, a racket guy, a numbers runner or a bookmaker, to go into legitimate business where people will have respect for ya.

Grove scored the first knockout at the old Madison Square Garden in the Twenties. He went on to kayo three out of four former world champeens, in bouts at the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium. I got ten columns from Damon Runyon in the New York American, he boasts. But a fella called Dan Parker, sports editor of the Daily Mirror, is who made me. In the Thirties, Grove became a Broadway booking agent and a regular of Lindys society. I wasnt MCA or General Amusement or the William Morris officethose are the key bookers. The rest is all amateur night in Dixie. Nevertheless, Grove booked Ellington, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, dozens of big bands at dances for some twenty years. But ya see, truefully, uh, today it aint here anymore, because people dont want acts. His next careerpasting up fight posters for the Garden, pushing a shopping cart and bucket of gluebegan to take precedence. Its been his meal ticket for the past thirty years, but lately they havent been calling.