Before the Internet

[HecticArt]

NatGeo had like a hardcover nature encyclopedia? Or do you mean that your fam would just hang onto the magazines? I remember going to old people's homes as a kid and the bottom few shelves of their various bookshelves would be filled with old NatGeo magazines in order.

No. The encyclopedias were hard covered and lined one of the built-in bookshelves in the living room, the shelf below it (old people style) had the National Geographic's lined up in order.

Both parents were teachers, so with all of the other books that they had, it made it look like the kids had a chance of being smart.
I'm not sure that it worked out quite like that.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

No. The encyclopedias were hard covered and lined one of the built-in bookshelves in the living room, the shelf below it (old people style) had the National Geographic's lined up in order.

Both parents were teachers, so with all of the other books that they had, it made it look like the kids had a chance of being smart.
I'm not sure that it worked out quite like that.

My parents had a set of encyclopedias but they were already old by the time I needed to use them. If I was doing a school project on anything that was at all current I had to use the ones at the library. This was in the 70s when things weren't really changing that fast. Today an encyclopedia would be out of date before it made it off the publishing line.

 

[sadchild]

re TV, I remember having a small black and white tv in the living room (late 70s). When my mother moved in with my later-step-father, he had a color tv he had built with a remote he built (early 80s). Somewhere around 1983, he got cable and a descrambler, so we had HBO, Skinemax, Showtime and The Movie Channel.

re: pr0n, I spent a lot of time during the summer at my aunt and uncle's house. One my my cousins found his stash of Playboys, Penthouses, etc and we all ogled over them. Then I bought a stack of old girly magz from the older kid next door when I was about 14.

 

[scotchandcigar]

If we're going to talk about TV Guide, we have to mention Reader's Digest. The magazine made to stack nicely on a toilet tank. And all the articles were nice and short.

 

[MonoStereo]

If we're going to talk about TV Guide, we have to mention Reader's Digest. The magazine made to stack nicely on a toilet tank. And all the articles were nice and short.

At the doctor's office the other day my wife & I had a conversation about the "I Am Joe's ( fill in the blank here with a random body part )" column in Reader's Digest.

I always thought it was funny that at some point the random body part was gonna be Joe's crank. And the people that wrote the column would sigh & think "I suppose we were always gonna end up here at some point". Maybe even call it Penis Week.

 

[HecticArt]

I always thought it was funny that at some point the random body part was gonna be Joe's crank.

Crank! Now that is a name for it that doesn’t get used enough.

 

[JHDK]

I had an older brother, so I'd get into his stash of magazines and (sad to say) books. But unless you're around my age or so, you wouldn't have that experience.

If you're specifically talking about porn books, ok that was not something I ever knew about. But stealing magazines from other people in your life? Oh I had to do that many times.

We would go to this fam friend's place all the time. The Canales. Mrs. Canale was like my mom, a total alpha, but loved cooking and loved throwing parties. Like she would have 30 people for MLK day....that's an exaggeration but she would throw house parties for everything.

I hated it and their son Joey was a year older and would beat me up when we went there. That's besides the point.

Joey's dad had a stash of Penthouse calendars from the 70's and 80's. I was clearly snooping around and found them and stole them. They were awesome to have before the internet made life much easier.

 

[JHDK]

Oh shit.....i'm sure none of you care but remember how I talked about my mom's bag phone and my fam friends with the multiple Mercedes had phones in the center consoles?

That was also the Canales!!!!!

I have fun stories about them. They had Joey....their fucking asshole biological kid. But they also has Shawn and Joanne. Those were his adopted, older brother and sister. Shawn was Kurt Cobain to me when I was 11 or whatever. A long haired skinny guy into grunge.....he died of an OD so that's not fun. But I was in love with Joanne. She was so freaking hot. And I'm not exaggerating about this. She was Miss Ocean City NJ one year. She was objectively hot. I have stories about how creepy 5th or 6th grade me tried to be friends with her and how she married a mobster that I'll go into later. It's my bedtime.

 

[Channel98]

a mobster that I'll go into later

I don't think I want to hear the details.

 

[JHDK]

I don't think I want to hear the details.

Back then I had no idea what I was doing. Not like I really do today either. But at least I'm no longer worried about where things go. Mr. Canale's calendars were all women with giant bushes. While it was Penthouse so they were spreading certain areas way more than Playboy it was still weird to see nether region afros. But despite them I knew it was still hot.

I would steal one like every other house party. That was my genius plan to avoid his suspicion hahahah. I'm sure he noticed (I wound up with like 8 of them in my room at home) but he never said anything. Thanks for that Mr. Canale. Good man.

Also......Thanks for the reminder Channel!

I haven't posted a ball shaving descriptive update in way too long. I'm so sorry I've left you all in eager anticipation. I will get on that right away.

 

[JHDK]

It's a wonder it took 3 pages for me to throw this topic into degeneracy. This is actually your fault Scotch.

Anyway when you say porn books what do you mean? I picture it was like how comic book nerds today say "graphic novel" to make themselves feel better. Like instead of a magazine it was a hardcover book with like more professional pics or something like that.

A certain very amazing lady sometimes reads what I call sex books but they are dumb cause they're just bunch of words. I don't care at all. I think it's funny. I have her text me pics of the explicit pages and they always make me laugh. One she told me about is where some NHL player winds up banging a senator's daughter or something like that. So it's perfectly ok to read that all day long.......and by read I mean listen to the audio book which is even worse........but God forbid a certain Dutchman decides to be honest when he gets asked about looking at various sites where women preform very natural and wholesome acts from time to time. Somehow that's upsetting.

 

[sadchild]

A certain very amazing lady sometimes reads what I call sex books but they are dumb cause they're just bunch of words.

On Hello Rangoon's upcoming single, we took samples directly from an old record of a lady talking about her sexual exploits. It's the mid 1900s reading of an old famous dirty book from the 1800s, if I remember right. Something about "Life And Times Of Fannie (last name)".

 

[Channel98]

British novelist John Cleland published Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill) in two installments (1748-49). There have been four movie adaptions of the novel (1964, 1968, 1983, 1995) and a two-part BBC-TV miniseries (2007). The first movie adaptation starred 22-year-old Italian actor Letícia Román (real name: Letizia Novarese).

 

[sadchild]

That's the one! Except the album isn't zany at all. It's basically audio pornography (by 1965 standards)

https://www.discogs.com/release/5272952-Pamela-Hayes-Marshall-With-Felicia-Peters-2-Marcia-Gatsby-Audrey-Long-Memoirs-Of-Fanny-Hill?srsltid=AfmBOoofyPnWec5NJ_EoTlRU6qw97H80y-sd0pvQ5hIReu9f3CnHT8jX

 

[Madison]

Not to change the subject but I didn't see any mention of The Columbia Record Club. You would get like 12 cassettes for 1 penny with the promise to buy
3 or 4 more cassettes at regular price. The catch was making sure you mailed back the slip for the special of the month if you didn't want the special. I joined during the cassette era then joined during the CD era. I still have two of the CD's in my treasured all female CD collection in my living room.
Suzanne Vega: "Nine Objects of Desire" and Swing Out Sister "Shapes and Patterns" I got for just a penny. Maybe a dollar by then.

 

[Channel98]

In the 1980s-90s I bought a lot of CDs from BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group) Music Club. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse: Get 12 CDs for a penny when I agree to buy six CDs at full price (plus shipping charges) during the next two years. They also frequently offered buy-one-get-one-free or buy-one-get-two free deals – which led me to buy dozens of CDs that I probably would never have bought otherwise. BMG bought Columbia Record Club in 2005 and both companies ended their mail-order business in 2009.

 

[MonoStereo]

I dunno how many times I joined both of those record clubs. Late in their run, there was a version of BMG Music Club that just sold CD's for something like $6.99 w/free shipping with no "buy X number of CD's" deal. Bought a lotta stuff that way.

 

[MonoStereo]

Crank! Now that is a name for it that doesn’t get used enough.

Swing by my place - you'll hear it plenty.

 

[JHDK]

Ok I thought of 2 things. My mom never cooked but I think she thought she would be less of a woman if she didn't have cookbooks or something......So I think they were Betty Crocker or maybe Good Housekeeping or something but she had these plaid red and white cookbooks.

I looked them up....It was a variation of this:



Also before Audible my mom signed up for some service where she could rent books on tape. Cassette tape. Alexa says there was literally a company called "Books on Tape". I'm guessing that's what she did. I mentioned my dad would drive us to FL for Disney at least once a year and we would listen to books on tape the whole way. Or my mom's folk shit like Peter Paul and Mary and all those. Or Disney soundtracks when we were getting close.

The only book I really remember was The Hot Zone.

It was kinda like that movie Outbreak but apparently it was a true story. I remember it being written like a novel.

 

[scotchandcigar]