Big Like You

I was in line at the store. Behind me, a little old white lady in a crochet hat reached up and tapped a finger on my back.

“I wish I was big like you,” she whispered when I turned around.

“Why would you wish that?”

“Because then if anyone messed with me, I could just beat them up,” she replied, smiling sweetly.


© 2017 Wyatt Doyle

Wyatt Doyle's latest book, I Need Real Tuxedo and a Top Hat!, is available now from New Texture. Buy it HERE.

New Podcast: TALES OF TIMES SQUARE, THE TAPES

Considered the granddaddy of New York sex books, Josh Alan Friedman's Tales of Times Square remains the definitive account of Times Square’s inglorious era. A mecca of cheap thrills, ghetto entertainment and 25-cent fulfillment for our sexually bankrupt masses. In the decades before Disney helped castrate its urban ecosystem, Broadway and 42nd Street surpassed Sodom and Gomorrah. Bulldozed and rebuilt into lockstep with corporate America, Times Square now evokes nostalgia for the lost soul of New York.

Tales of Times Square was originally published by Delacorte Press in 1986. It has remained in print through numerous editions. This new podcast, Tales of Times Square: The Tapes is derived from scratch tapes made during Josh’s years embedded in depravity.

Listen to Episode 1: Pee Wee below:



Tales of Times Square: The Podcast is a co-production of Black Cracker Online/New Texture.

I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE out now!

Out today from New Texture and The Men’s Adventure Library: I Watched Them Eat Me Alive, a full-color illustrated look at the frequently outrageous “killer creature” genre of pulp fiction stories and artwork featured in vintage men’s adventure magazines from the 1950s through the 1970s.

From man-eating shellfish to vicious snakes, from revenge-minded pumas to flesh-eating squirrels and bloodthirsty otters (!), literally any member of the animal kingdom turned killer in the imaginations of the men’s adventure magazine editors, writers, and artists, and eager readers ate the stories up for decades. Men’s Adventure Library editors Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle explore a bizarre and unique strain of hard-boiled pulp in this new, full-color collection, packed with tense stories of man vs. beast by men’s adventure greats like Walter Kaylin and Robert F. Dorr, and copiously illustrated with reproductions of spectacular covers and savage illustrations by “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” artist Wil Hulsey, Clarence Doore, and many others.

I Watched Them Eat Me Alive is available as a 106-page softcover for just $9.95, and in a deluxe 126-page hardcover edition for $24.95. The expanded hardcover features even more killer creature excitement, including ripsnorting work by pantheon men’s adventure artist Samson Pollen, and a long-lost tale of bloodthirsty crustaceans by SFWA Grand Master Robert Silverberg!

Order both editions from your local independent bookseller, or buy them via Amazon here...if you’ve got the guts!

The Wait

I started the day at the post office. A sixtysomething woman in line greeted me with a warm smile as I came in. She blushed a little as she explained that everything about me reminded her very much of her brother, dead some years now. She missed him terribly, and seeing me come through the door brought on a rush of happy memories. "That's why I smiled at you like that," she told me. Neither of us acknowledged that I’m white and he wasn't.

A few minutes later, the older black man behind me in line noticed the stooped, burly white man behind him was leaning heavily on a cane for support; he was damp with sweat and breathing hard from walking in the heat. He insisted the man move ahead of him to speed his wait. Inspired by the first man’s kindness, I encouraged the struggling man to move ahead of me, too. The man behind me went on to extend the same courtesy to the Syrian mother and daughter in hijab who had now moved into place behind him, because they were holding large boxes that looked heavy. They shared friendly smiles and thanked him, but by then the line was moving, and they said they’d wait their turn. A pleasant conversation had struck up between the woman who'd initially greeted me and the white lady in front of her, who was about the same age. They were strangers, but joked gently about their husbands like a pair of old friends. I almost had to remind myself I was in a slow line—at the post office!—on a sweltering July day. It was hard not to be affected by the graciousness and goodwill in the room.

Outside, I passed a woman in a crisp black T-shirt. The silkscreened image wasn't a rapper or pop star, but an elegant portrait of W.E.B. Du Bois, an American who famously said, “I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.” I told her I liked her shirt.

America’s still here, if you’re looking.


Text and photo © 2017 Wyatt Doyle

Wyatt Doyle's latest book, I Need Real Tuxedo and a Top Hat!, is available now from New Texture. Buy it HERE.

Pretty Sleazy, Photobucket or: Why the Site Looks Like Hell

You may have noticed all the big, ugly dials and PLEASE UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT notices where our site's images used to be. That URL that promises "important info"? It takes you to a whole lot of nothing, so don't waste your time checking it out. Here's what's really going on:

Most of the images on our site are hosted by a service called Photobucket. This service has been offered at no charge for as long as we've been using it. But recently, with no advance warning or notice to its customers, Photobucket pulled a fast one and blocked our site's access to our images, demanding a ransom of $400 per year to restore access. We're not the only site affected by it; lots of sites use the service for image hosting. You can read more about the whole sleazy turn of events in this post from PC World: 

https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet 

Photobucket's behavior couldn't be more underhanded. Of course businesses have the right to charge for their services, but a little advance notice that things were changing was the very least Photobucket could have done for its users. It's such a throat-cutting move, we have to wonder if there's not some kind of accounting scheme straight out of The Producers in play here, where the company is in a position to reap tremendous profits from its own sudden demise. After all, who could ever trust the company again?

We're not paying Photobucket's ransom, so this site (and Josh Alan Friedman's Black Cracker Online, and Rev. Branch's site, and most of our affiliated sites) will look pretty crappy while we reconfigure. Hang in there with us, we'll be back, looking better than ever. Photobucket's future, on the other hand, is looking considerably less rosy.


 

I NEED REAL TUXEDO AND A TOP HAT! Out Now

I Need Real Tuxedo and a Top Hat!, a collection of photos and stories by Wyatt Doyle (Stop Requested), is available now from New Texture.

Click HERE to purchase the 88-page trade softcover edition for $16.95, or the deluxe, 104-page expanded hardcover edition with superior image reproduction and additional content for $29.95.

Preview the book below:

Stanley J. Zappa at Casse-Tête 2017

Casse-Tête: A Festival of Experimental Music, June 15th to 18th, 2017, at Theatre North West in Prince George, BC.

photo: Troglosound

New Texture's Stanley J. Zappa will perform with his Quintet on Friday the 16th, and as part of ManZap on Saturday the 17th. Full schedule below, and more info at http://www.cassetetefestival.com


Sing-Song Songs by Stanley J. Zappa is available now from New Texture. Buy it here.

Jimmy Angelina & Wyatt Doyle Interviewed

We Are Cult's James Gent interviews The Last Coloring Book's Jimmy Angelina and Wyatt Doyle! Click HERE to read it.

And click HERE to buy the book. Preview what's inside below:

Read Kendra Steiner Editions' Bill Shute's thoughts on The Last Coloring Book HERE.