Saturday, July 05, 2008


In late 1989 Art Bergmann and I went to the Number 5 Orange for a beer after having seen one of the worst films we had ever seen in our lives. We had gone to a pre-screening of of Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders. We had a mutual friend Michael Metcalf who was a PA and had a bit part playing a real turd. His character's name was Chief Diareahh. To get rid of him and his evil associates, Bill and Mary Turd and Little Poop they were fed Exlax.

Whe quickly ran out of money and when our sassy, but attractive waitress asked us if we wanted more beer I told her we had no more money.

She was wearing a white dress with black polka dots that was tight in the right places. The sight of her reminded me of the most erotic scene in films. In John Huston's 1961 The Misfits Marilyn Monroe walks into a cowboy bar and grabs a man's paddle ball and plays it expertly as all the men go wild and count, "35, 35, 36,..." and she does not miss. The polka dots resembled the physics experiment where you draw dots on a balloon and then blow it large. The polka dots had a life all their own. So did Kelly's (our waitress).

With a sneer she asked us, "Go into your pockets and bring out what you've got." We pulled out quarters, dimes and nickles. Triumphantly she picked it all up and said, "Just enough for a pint. You boys can share it," and plunked it in the middle of our table.

I did get Kelly to come to my studio and pose for me in her polka dot dress. At the time, 1990 I was obsessed with the idea of taking pictures of women with them upside down and hanging from my studio couch (a $100 bargain from a retiring psychiatrist who even included the delivery for the price.)

I believe that the truly sophisticated would never think of turning such a picture in the other direction! Pictures that are taken upside down should be seen that way. This blog posts shares a similarity with the previous one in that both feature a woman lying on her back and photographed upside down. But there is also a difference. While I met only two Tannias I did meet four Kellys in all.

Kelly Tough

Kelly Brock

Kelly Wood