Thin Lizzy’s Fighting: Lottery Dreams & Vinyl Obsessions

— Lou Waxman

When you are sitting at a bar like the Black Moon Public House all alone with the bartender on a Sunday afternoon, the same conversations tend to come up about your favorite books, records or films.  What is the Great American Novel?  What is the greatest car chase in a movie?  Or maybe if you have nothing to talk about you talk about sports.  Never politics or religion.  That is when you have no ideas or idea.  Or you might talk about your fantasies?  Not what you are thinking about, but the run-of-the-mill fantasy like what would you do if you won over a billion dollars in the lottery?

Good question.  Get Lou a PBR pounder and let’s hash this out.  Lou would be the executive producer on the greatest porno ever made.  This has been talked about in Hollywood since moving pictures began.  It gained traction in the late 1960s with Terry Southern and Stanley Kubrick and Lou is rather confident the topic surfaces in conversations at Hollywood parties as sushi bites get passed by uniformed waitstaff.  Lou would be willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in this project.  

Now the priority would not be the pipe dream of having A-List stars in a porno.  That would be nice, of course.  Having Sydney Sweeney and John Hamm in a b/g scene would be great but not essential.  You could blow your whole budget on finding out what is the price of the A-List du jour to actually have sex on screen.  As is common knowledge, everybody in Hollywood is a whore and they all have their price.  

That said, there are plenty of porn actors who can actually act and have appeared in mainstream movies.  A whole history of them in fact.  Bit parts mostly.

Or they provide some local color:

But some play a larger role.  Like Marilyn Chambers:

Or there is Steven Soderbergh’s fascination with Sasha Grey:

Or there is Paul Thomas Anderson’s interest in Nina Hartley:

Lou could do this all day.  You get the idea.  Let’s be clear, to make an A-List porn you do not need to have A-List Hollywood actors.  It would be ideal and a true wet dream, but it is not essential.

What Lou would spend his money on is a top-notch script and a dynamite concept.  It would be an original film, not IP or parody, by an all-time great writer/director.  Lou is thinking of Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, or Steven Soderbergh.  These guys are in the game.  All three have links to porn and the porn industry, and Lou is sure they actually possess ideas about the ultimate porn movie if they haven’t already tossed the script in a desk drawer somewhere.  For example, Lou would bet that Tarantino has a porn script involving the Manson Family if not written then in his notes for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  Same with Paul Thomas Anderson with Boogie Nights.  Anderson captured porn too perfectly in that movie not to have a concept for the ultimate porn somewhere gathering dust.

Lou with his billions of dollars would dust off these manuscripts and bring them to life.  The screenplay and director are the keys to the whole project.  In fact, with this lined up Lou may even get A-list Hollywood talent to come on board.  Hollywood has no shame.  A-Listers clamor to work with Woody Allen and Roman Polanski all the time.  If Tarantino were making a porn, Sydney Sweeney and John Hamm would sign on for sure.

Depending on the concept Tarantino, Anderson, or Soderbergh produce, Lou could be shelling out major bucks for set design and cinematography and all that technical shit.  Lou will write a blank check for his director’s vision.  Lou is nothing if not hands-off.  That said Lou would like to interfere in one area.  All these directors have an amazing talent for putting music to film.  And they no doubt have ideas about what would make the ultimate porn soundtrack.  Lou would just request that Pharrell Williams be hired to do one original song that would serve as the theme song for the movie.  Again, Lou would bet that Pharrell thought about this already, but Lou would give him the opportunity to let fly with his fly shit.  

If Lou won the lottery, he would not actually do this.  

But like all these guys above he has obviously thought about it.  A lot.  No, Lou is a much simpler man.  He would outfit a touring bus like those used by the A-List rock stars or John Madden and travel the country going to record stores with his vinyl junkie buddies.  This, Lou might actually do.

What would Lou be looking for?  Again, Lou is a simple man.  He is not interested in high-end collectibles or holy grails.  No Beatles Butcher covers.  Lou might fuck with vintage Blue Notes but he would stay away from Paramount 78s of old blues pioneers.  Lou is looking for nothing crazy.

Lou just bought a copy of Thin Lizzy’s Fighting from The Vogue.  Lou would be happy to step off his tour bus and walk into a vinyl shop and see a copy of that.  If Lou didn’t already have it, he would put that in his bag.  What Lou really wants now is Live and Dangerous.  Lou loves live albums and this one by Thin Lizzy is listed as one of the best.  Lou hears that this album is a bit like seeing Pam Anderson in an issue of Big Naturals.  Sure, Pam looks amazing but there are some enhancements that need to be addressed in this particular context.  Big Naturals is like a double LP live album.  So Thin Lizzy threw in some overdubs and sweeteners.  Lou will listen to Thin Lizzy anywhere anyhow.  Just like he will always look at Pam Anderson.

Rolling across this great bulge, as Kerouac called it, on a tour bus, Lou would be on the lookout for the simple pleasures.  The great live albums to be sure but also the LPs a little deeper in a discography by a treasured band.  Lou has Machine Head and Made in Japan but he would love to get his hands on Deep Purple in Rock and Deep Purple in Concert.  These aren’t hard to find.  They have just eluded Lou in his limited travels in search of LPs.  Lou needs Van Halen’s first album or anything by Kate Bush or by The Cure.

Speaking of The Cure and the ultimate porn film.

Lou has some stories about Stoya that are off the record blog.  Catch him at The Vogue and buy him a PBR for details.

Lou has LPs by Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, and Mississippi John Hurt.  But he has yet to track down any Son House.  Lou would like to do that.  Again, Lou is not looking for blue 78s or anything but that said he would like an original pressing of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music on Folkways in pristine condition.  He would also like mint copies of all of Jack Kerouac’s LPs including the rare Dot recording.  To be honest, Lou would go back to his roots and pay big money for spoken word stuff.  Lou would probably never listen to them, but he would feel good having them nearby.  Despite Lou’s love of music, the printed word takes precedence, and he would probably jump back in with both feet on rare book collecting.  Authors and poets are still where Lou’s interests lie.  And the most interesting man of the counterculture a la the Dos Equis guy is Harry Smith.  He is the counterculture’s true polymath.  He collected old 78s of course, but he also collected examples of string games, like cat’s cradles, and paper airplanes.  Fascinating guy.

Until Lou wins the lottery, he will just have to be content with dropping by at The Vogue and picking up Thin Lizzy’s Fighting.  That is fine with Lou.  It is an awesome LP.  The only better thing would be a copy of Live and Dangerous.  The grass is always greener.  Even if you have billions of the green stuff.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

Going Mainstream:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDgdRtGBx4E

Marilyn Chambers in Rabid:  Rabid (1977) - Bonus Clip: Susan Roman On Working With Marilyn Chambers (HD)

Sasha Grey on Entourage with Stan Lee!!:  Stan Lee meets Sasha Grey on Entourage

The Madden Cruiser:  Take a tour of the Madden Cruiser with John Madden himself

On Paper Airplanes:  On Paper Airplanes: The Collections of Harry Smith

Harry Smith, American Magus:  Harry Smith, American Magus, Directed by Paola Igliori