A series of decaying wood and steel structures extending into the Hudson River along the West Side Highway from Christopher Street up to Chelsea, the piers were popular gay cruising spots back in the 1970s. The vibe was open, loose and sexy.

The years between Stonewall and the advent of Aids were a period of sexual freedom and celebration in the West Village and the piers were at the center of a scene that in retrospect seems bittersweet.

Nelson Sullivan’s “The Piers in New York City in 1976” is a short 8mm clip which captures a transitional time between hope and harsher realities.

Until his fatal heart attack in 1987, Nelson Sullivan spent much of his life documenting the Manhattan downtown scene of the the 1970s and 80s. You can see his work at the 5 Ninth Avenue Project on Youtube. It’s a treasure trove of videos, including Lady Bunny, RuPaul, Larry Tee, Michael Alig and the Club Kids, Sylvia Miles, Michael Musto, Albert Crudo, John Sex, the Pyramid Club, the Limelight and Palladium.
 

 
Some would say that Sir Jimmy Savile always had a whiff of the unsavory about him. Before his death in 2011, there were plenty of rumors doing the rounds of the olde jingle-jangle jewelry master’s sexual peccadilloes, of which the most vicious was the allegation our sainted Jim enjoyed sexual congress with corpses at a local hospital. I first heard that story when I was at school in the 1970s, so you can imagine how ingrained these rumors became over the years.

Another, was Sir Jimmy’s alleged sexual shenanigans at various hospital locations throughout the U.K., the only consistent here was that the location changed and the depravity deepened with every re-telling.

What was never clear was why if these rumors had even a soupcon of fact they were never investigated by some tabloid journalist or ambitious Lestarde, who planned to put the cuffs on Sir Jim. Which is what one would expect, considering such high profile cases involving Gary Glitter, Jonathan King and even The Who’s Pete Townshend, over his dubious internet activity.

Which is why this week, I was surprised to hear that an unlikely source had come forward with allegations that Sir Jimmy had sex with under age girls during the 1970s. The source was the over sixties magazine, The Oldie, edited by former Private Eye chief Richard Ingrams.

The Oldie is usually filled with the chattering of baby boomers sharing tips on pensions, retirement plans, holidays, reports of memorial services and memories of the 1940s to 1960s when everything was hunky-dory with the world. It is not the kind of publication one would expect to find serious child sex allegations about popular TV celebrities. However, this week, Miles Goslett has done just that in his article, “Savile row”.

Goslett investigates why the BBC allegedly dropped a news report (for their current affairs show Newsnight), “investigating allegations of sexual abuse made against its long-serving employee Jimmy Savile?” Goslett explains that before Christmas the BBC broadcast two tribute programmes (one on TV, one on radio) that celebrated Savile’s life and career.

...No mention was made of the unsavoury rumours about Savile’s private life which had persisted throughout his career.

Before the BBC’s tributes were aired, however, journalists on the BBC2 programme Newsnight had been investigating the datk side of the apparently saintly entertainer. Their enquiries centred around Savile’s regular visits during the 1970s to Duncroft, an approved local authority school for emotional disturbed girls aged between 13 and 18 in Staines, Surrey, which closed in 1980. It emerged that in 2007 Surrey Police and the Crown Prosecution Service had investigated a historic complaint that Savile had abused girls at the school but no action had been take.

Newsnight tracked down several ex-Duncroft pupils, now middle-aged women, who confirmed that Savile had molested them when they were aged 14 or 15. At least one woman gave an on-camera, on-the-record interview to Newsnight about the abuse she had suffered.

As Goslett goes on to say, this was a coup by any standard. However, prior to the story being broadcast the story was dropped.
 
More on the allegations against Savile and the whole of Miles Goslett’s article, after the jump…
 

 
Santorum may have beat Mitt in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, but he’s no match for Mommie Dearest.

Joan, next time bring out the heavy artillery. A wire hanger!
 

 
You know what, I don’t think these women look “remorseful” at all, more like “unfulfilled.”

The name of the site should really read, “Stock Photos of Women Looking Unfulfilled After Sex.”

See more at Stock Photos of Women Looking Remorseful After Sex
 

 

 
Via Super Punch

 
It’s Friday, so I present to you without comment 70s Blowjob Faces!
 

 
More after the jump…

 
One of the weirdest villains in the history of comic books was the formidable He-She. A creation of writer and artist Chuck Biro, the part man/part woman baddie appeared in the pages of Crimebuster comics featuring crime fighter Chuck Chandler. The series ran from 1942 to 1956.

Crimebuster had no super powers. Chuck Chandler decided to fight crime (Nazis, specifically) after his parents were murdered by Iron Jaw, who was Crimebuster’s main recurring nemesis and a really pretty nasty bad guy.

Want to read the whole exciting comic featuring He-She? Go here.

 
Broadcast on UK Channel 4 in 2001, Top Ten: X-Rated looks at the banning of rock and rap songs and videos on radio and TV. Hosted, appropriately, by a snarling John Lydon.

Ironically, the documentary itself was not banned despite been chock full of nasty bits - thanks to the progressive programming at Channel 4

Among the banned: Scott Walker,  2 Live Crew, The Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, The Sex Pistols, Ice T, N.W.A, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Kool Keith, Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin and The Pogues.
 

 
Part two after the jump…

 
Here’s something from the Dangerous Minds’ archives that was originally posted on March 4, 2011.

Wolfgang Riechmann was part of the German electronic scene of the 1970s centered in and around Düsseldorf . He started composing music in the 60’s in a group called Spirits of Sound with Wolfgang Flur who later became a founding member of Kraftwerk.

Riechmann released only one album, the brilliant Wunderbar, just one month before he was tragically stabbed to death in a random act of violence.

In Wunderbar, which was released from Sky Records in 1978, the influences of the so-called Berlin school (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze etc.) and the so-called Düsseldorf School (NEU!, Kraftwerk, La Düsseldorf) can be recognised. The main elements of his compositions are simple sequencer and drum patterns, filtered through Riechmann’s personal harmonies and simple (even simplistic) but mature melodies. The music in Wunderbar has been described as ‘‘modern, electronic pop, in a league with Kraftwerk and NEU!.”

The following video consists of all six tracks of Wunderbar.

1. Wunderbar (5:40)
2. Abendlicht (4:21)
3. Weltweit (7:00)
4. Silberland (7:41)
5. Himmelblau (8:38)
6. Traumzeit (1:11)

The video is a collage of vintage European erotica that contains some nudity that most viewers will find more campy than sexy. But I think it works nicely with Reichmann’s music.
 

 
Previously on DM: Brad Laner on Wolfgang Riechmann

 
Andy Warhol’s Kiss is probably the artist’s earliest film work that was screened in public. Harkening back to the time when Hayes Office censors would not allow lips to touch and linger for more than three seconds in Hollywood films, with Kiss, Warhol decided to shoot male/female, female/female and male/male snogs that went on for three minutes. The concept was likely also influenced by a 1929 Greta Garbo film called The Kiss which apparently was screened at Amos Vogel’s influential Cinema 16 experimental film society right around the time that Warhol bought his first Bolex film camera.

The Kiss films were started in 1963 and shown in installments during weekly underground film screenings organized by Jonas Mekas. Eventually a 55-minute long version of Kiss was assembled. Among the participants were Ed Sanders of The Fugs, actor Rufus Collins from the Living Theatre, sculptor Marisol, artist Robert Indiana, as well as several of the outcasts and doomed beauties who would come to comprise the Factory’s “superstars.” The woman who you see kissing several guys, is Naomi Levine, who probably also came up with the concept (many of the kisses were also shot in her apartment). Andy Warhol referred to Levine as “my first female superstar.”
 

 
Here it is in all of its unadulterated glory, Russ Meyer’s riot grrrl masterpiece Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! , the film John Waters called “beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future.”

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence, the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains… sex. Violence devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence doesn’t only destroy, it creates and molds as well. Let’s examine closely then this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman. The softness is there, the unmistakable smell of female, the surface shiny and silken, the body yielding yet wanton. But a word of caution: handle with care and don’t drop your guard. This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs, operating at any level, any time, anywhere, and with anybody. Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor’s receptionist… or a dancer in a go-go club!

In stunning black and white.