The Bonus

I bought an old fiberglass fly rod from P.D. Walsh's Country Store in Falls Village, Conn. yesterday for a whopping $31.92 with tax.

I don't think it's ever been used. Seven feet long, casts well with a four weight and even better with a five. It's got to be 40 years old at least, probably older.

But imagine my surprise and delight when I opened the cardboard tube and saw the madras rod sock.

How I Escaped From Hell, Only to Watch This Turkey

Tuesdays are rough in the weekly newspaper business. They usually involve writing a story or two from the previous evening — two and a half hours' worth of deep thoughts on wastewater treatment and the economic potential of Spandex-clad bicyclists this time — and proofreading, arguments about words, incessant food-related questions from Ye Editor, thinking up stories for next week, and an enduring headache.

So it was with considerable relief that I realized that not only did I not have any Tuesday night things to cover, but I had six Bimbos Behind Bars flicks to watch, courtesy of Amazon.

Unhappily, I started with "Femmine Infernali" (aka "Escape from Hell"), a piece of rancid Italian cheese from 1980.

The first clue that this was going to suck was the quality of the print. I think they set up a 16mm camera and sync sound recorder and filmed the screening of a 16mm print of the movie. Kind of like the guys who sneak little video recorders into theaters now and then sell the result as bootleg DVDs. At least the movie guys used a tripod.

But this sucker could have been pristine and it would still be awful, even though it has all the elements of a BBB movie — the shower scene, the lesbitation, the mud fight, the sadistic guards, the sadistic warden, the sadistic lesbitatious German female guardette.

And it adds some exciting new twists, such as de facto crucifixion, flogging while strapped to log, and burial up to the neck while the python approaches.

Or was it a boa constrictor?

The drunken doctor in the camp is the good guy. He gets his head out of the J & B bottle long enough to have sex with one of the gals, and lead them out on a mostly doomed escape bid.

Everybody else who isn't a prisoner are the bad guys, including the tubby little warden, who is germaphobic — not helpful when running a ladies' prison camp in the jungle.

We're talking a couple of dozen breasts, and lots of groping of the female areas. Also slobbering. Exceptionally bad overdubbing, which combined with extraordinarily poor sound quality, make it impossible to follow the dialogue. (Extra half coil for this.)

What makes this particular piece of schlock stink, as opposed to your "Caged Heat" or "The Big Doll House"?

The pace is turgid, the exploitation scenes are by the numbers, and while I am generally against plot getting in the way of the story, there has to be some reason for these gals to be out in the jungle digging holes and filling them back up.

One and a half coils, in gratitude for not being able to make out the words.

Adventures in Horticulture

Through absolutely no fault of my own I have these flowers right outside my door. A couple years ago the landlord hired a lady to come mess around with the place, and nothing happened. But this year all these orange things popped up, and the purple things, which started out as boring green pods, changed color and in the last week or so started to open up.

I sit out here in the mornings with coffee, cigar and current book, Imus on the radio, and the flowers - whatever they are. Very restful.

Magnum Pie

In college we referred to Tom Selleck (in "Magnum, P.I.") as Magnum Pie. We smoked a lot of pot in those days.

However, I do love my Magnum Pie red bird shirt. Ghastly, yet tasteless.

Where Are You, Lindsey Nelson ?

The great Lindsey Nelson, on his wardrobe choices for broadcasting the New York Mets:

"We were going to be televising 120 games in color. I walked into a New York clothing store and told the clerk, 'Let me see all the jackets you can't sell.' He brought out seven, and I bought all of them.” He claimed he owned 335 of them at one point in time. They often clashed with the set and his surroundings, because the television technology of the time couldn’t handle it.

from Centerfield Maz

Today's offering is not quite as eccentric as Nelson's, but I tried. Old Brooks jacket, Lands End shirt and knit tie, baggy Bill's M1 poplins with the single forward pleat, argyle socks from J. Press with Mets orange and blue, and rather dirty bucs.

After a lot of false starts I have concluded that a white shirt and solid tie are the only things to wear under a jacket like this. I suppose pink, blue or yellow might work — but I lack the energy to try.

Pervert! — The Next Bloodsucking Freaks?

Mary Carey plays with her corn in Pervert! — an act of easily penetrable symbolism.

No, Jonathan Yudis' Pervert! is not the next Bloodsucking Freaks. It's too tasteful, for starters.

James is a dorky college student who goes home from Tulane or wherever for a summer with pa in Death Valley.

The father has one of those minor prophet names like Hezekebediah, wears overalls and makes meat sculptures — not a great medium out in the desert.

He also hires hookers to come out and live with him. One of them played by erstwhile politician Mary Carey, has sex with James too.

But James has a terrible curse that involves the fact that his genitals have become detached from his own personal groinal area and are in fact a set of violent mutant genitals, with lots of sharp teeth and a very definite, if unfocused, desire to kill.

So what I want to know is how did James have sex with Mary Carey in the beginning of the flick?

This was keeping me up last night, but I got to sleep — finally — by counting breasts (22). A lake's worth of blood. Random witch doctors. Sexually ambivalent neo-Nazi child-abusing auto mechanic. Attack penis and testicles, with teeth. Penis-Cam. Surprisingly good soundtrack. Really, really stupid.

Hideous

On June 28 I delivered a mostly ad-libbed lecture on fly-fishing at the historic and airless South Canaan Meeting House in Falls Village, Conn.

Sweating bullets, I stammered my way through the hour, and then did a little impromptu casting demo afterwards.

Brooks blazer, JAB StaysCool SuperDuper white buttondown, madras tie, baggy Bill's poplins, and dirty bucks. Rod is the Lunker Clunker, a nine-foot eight-weight piece of lumber from Cabelas, which cost about $89 shipped with a case, reel and line. You buy it cheap, you don't weep.