7 NOTES & BOLTS 11 SEX RATED 15 LETTERS 17 FANTASY TAPE 20 INTERVIEW; John Travolta
A Young Star Bounces Back by Desmond Gaffney
23 MADELINE
Innocence & Sin
Pictorial
31 SHAMELESS TALES
Dancing in the Park
40 PINBALL LUST
Good Pinball Equals Good Loving
Article by Andrew Dowler
43 THE GREAT CANADIAN BEAVER HUNT
A visit to the bedrooms of the nation
48 LINDA
She has a bush you could beat around in for days
54 ANAL ANNALS
Life can be the Shits
Fiction by Joseph E. Scala
57 TANYA
Pictorial
63 HOUSEWIFE HOOKERS
71 Annie & ANNE
Nipple to Nipple — Pussy to Pussy
Pictorial
91 LUNCHEON MUNCHIES
Lunchtime was never like this
Pictorial
PUBLISHER'S PAGE
Don't Blame The Boob Tube
Does this statement have a familiar ring to it: "The movie industry may be
encouraging mass murders by glorifying the people who commit them." Could
be a psychiatrist talking. Or a judge, a doctor, a preacher or a politician.
It isn't. It's David Berkowitz, paraphrased from a letter he sent to a New York
broadcaster. You may remember Berkowitz as Son of Sam — killer of six New
York women. That's right! A mass murderer has finally confirmed what the experts
have been telling us all along — insane violence in the modern world can
be blamed on TV and the movies. But has he really?
Forget it!
Do you remember Berkowitz's case? He killed at what he thought was the telepathic
command of a neighbor's dog. Actually, he killed at the command of his own sick
mind — movies and TV didn't enter into it.
Okay, so it doesn't apply to Son of Sam. But it's still a good idea, isn't it?
All the experts say so.
Screw the experts! Even people with college degrees get frightened by the world
and go looking for easy answers. If you check into a few of the world's loony
murderers, you'll find a couple of very interesting things. The first is that
the twentieth century has no monopoly on crazies. You'll find apparently motiveless
killing sprees in the Roman Empire, during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the
Industrial Revolution. You'll find them in the country and in towns.
That reminds me: the big theory before TV and movies was that this sort of thing
happened mostly in rural areas and that loneliness was to blame. Almost the exact
opposite of the current theory.
The other interesting thing you'll find is that in most cases, the killer had
a weird childhood. It might be as shocking and obvious as incest and child abuse,
or it might be as subtle as cold, unloving parents who left the future killer
with hatred for the world and an incredibly low opinion of himself.
Time after time, those killers who talk say the same sort of thing. They heard
voices. God told them to. They saw the Devil in their victims. It came in a dream.
Now that doesn't tell us what makes one man a killer, while another man with an
equally bad childhood and an equally vivid imagination, becomes a pacifist. But
it does tell us that the urge to kill comes from within and once the urge is there,
the mind will make up any excuse to carry out its desires.
But without that desire, all the Dirty Harrys and Kojaks in the world will have
no effect.
So for heaven's sake, let's bury this bandwagon before we waste a lot of time,
money and effort making TV even blander than it is and end up wondering why the
crime rate is still rising.
