“What the hell am I going to do with my life?” I thought as my feet soaked in the cool Maine stream. The sun was shining, and my body was thrashed. It was Blueberry season in “Down East” Maine, and I was there with fellow Hippies, Indians, Mexicans, and Runaways. We were all equal migrant workers, raking in the green (I guess it was actually blue), for some backwards Maine Blueberry company. When you make a $1.50 for 11 pounds of picked blueberries, it is simply a matter of working hard. Something I had never really done before. We lived in the woods, shit in the woods, and ate peanut butter and jelly with cold, canned beans. Bending over all day, picking up blueberries and trying not to squish too many of them. It was quite uncomfortable, but I wasn’t there long before I was enjoying myself and happy to be breaking a sweat for little or no pay. Well, for three weeks anyway. 

The Great Blueberry Festival was what I liked to call that experience. One that would change my life in many different ways. My little vacation from reality allowed me to “find myself,” which I didn’t realize until long after. A corner stone that would prove to change my life and my thoughts...sort of.

Having just graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology, a prestigious photography school, I had made up my mind that working as a photographer would not fit into my life long plans of making money without working too hard. Advertising photography requires at least 6-10 years of hard work before you start cashing the big checks. This seemed like it would be too long for me....There had to be a way to make loads of cash pronto!

I was so glad to be out of school, and even more psyched to be out of Rochester, NY...The Armpit of Upstate NY. I moved back to Cambridge, MA, where I had spent the previous 12 years of my life. Happy again to see culture and people, springtime and subways, and many pints of Guinness. However, as usual I was bored and had no financial prospects. I was seeing a nice little 19 year old girl, so at least I was getting laid. Yet even that got boring, and I asked her to stop driving 400 miles to see me. So...I went to pick blueberries.

Naturally, when the call came from my life long buddy Erik, who had just graduated from UCLA and needed a roommate, my direction was found. I was moving to LA. The farthest place I could move, and the city of dreams. Most importantly, soon after moving here, I realized that this was a town in which I could make a LOT of cash and not do a whole lot of work. I just had to play my cards right.

Of course after not getting work for three months, and living with NO cash, no car, and no friends, things weren’t too great. I wasn’t a total slacker. I applied for a bunch of jobs, all advertising related. But not photo work, with the exception of one fellow, a photographer for whom I assisted. The work was very easy and very boring, as I had at least a year worth of full-time photo assisting experience. Not to mention that the work he was getting was very dry and he wouldn’t pay me until he got paid. That was the most absurd part, me waiting three months for a lousy hundred bucks from some asshole who is too cheap to pay his help. This ended as quickly as it started. I started to realize that the only way things were going to break would be the only way things ever broke for me: a totally random chain of events.

On to my second UCLA Grad student social security number, I logged into their Job Board via the World Wide Web. This is a great source...especially because I could fax my resume straight from my computer. So I sat at home, dreamt about owning a TV, and tried to take walks. Of course you can’t really walk anywhere in LA so that didn’t work out too well. Anyway, one day at Johnnie’s Diner, I got a page from some guy named Nigel. He worked for some company I faxed two weeks earlier. Apparently he had liked my resume a lot, but lost it behind his desk for two weeks. We made an appointment, and I had to figure out a way to get from my house in the Mid-Wilshire area to his office in West LA. 

I had been to a lot of job interviews, so I had the opportunity to wear many different outfits, and figure out what worked best. I didn’t know what to expect for this one, all I knew was that it was in a hotel, and something about a sex therapist. Oh yeah, the job position was for “Video Editor.” I’d had a fair amount of video experience, but nothing compared to my mastery of photography. Anyway, I decided to go for the Hollywood all black, casual no tie look. Complete with a bushy afro. This turned out to be exactly how the company was, concerned about style, but much more about comfort. 

My initial reaction as I walked into the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences was one of mild shock. “Am I stepping into the seedy adult industry?!” I wondered, staring at the pictures of naked women, Betty Page, and dirty cartoons on the wall. In this little office sat an “edit bay” which was an old shelf sitting on a desk, with two VCR’s, a couple of mismatched monitors, an ancient 3/4” deck, and a few other miscellaneous machines. Also crammed in this hotel room, were three desks, a young girl with various piercings and tattoos, an older bald guy with a scratchy voice, and some guy that looked like a cop. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and nobody was really doing anything.

After being introduced, and meeting Nigel (the bald one), Elyssa (the tattooed lady), and Adrian a.k.a. Vinnie (the cop), I met Max. A tall older gentleman in very short shorts, with little or no hair on his legs. He wore a loose half un-buttoned white shirt, and looked like he should be sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere very south of here. As we started chatting my nerves relaxed more than on any other job interview of my life. Moments after being in this office, I felt right at home. So comfortable, that I didn’t really have to say much, but knew that I had a job, and things were going to be very different. I was so happy that I had found an outlet in this stuffy, uptight city, where I could be myself, and not worry about offending a soul. Max broke the ice so many times during our conversation, but the best was a little story/joke about men fucking sheep.

This was it. This was the place where I was going to have a lot of fun. Winter was approaching and the sun was still shining, I had a job...wasn’t getting paid dirt, but it didn’t really matter, because I got to look at naked girls anytime I wanted, and was expected to. I had this job where I could tell dirty jokes, be rude, make fun of people, and get stoned and drunk while I was working. It didn’t seem to get much better than this. Except when I told people about it. Some had heard of Dr. Suzy, and were wowed by the fact that I worked there. Others had no idea what I was talking about. But most importantly, people would get offended when I would talk about work! At first I was so excited that I would say things like, “I got this new job, where we tell people to go fuck, have fun, and jerking off is good!” Soon, I calmed down and bragged with a bit more class, “You see, I have learned that you have to find pleasures in your life, no matter what they are. You shouldn’t be embarrassed to touch yourself, or talk about your sex life.”

The funny thing was that it didn’t matter how I described it, many people were disgusted by the fact that I even talked about sex in a positive way. I was crazy! As I would chatter on about seeing public whippings and spankings, or talk freely and positively about the adult porn industry, the response would often be of blank stares. As if these people though I was some hornball-East Coast-mutha fucka, who kept opening his mouth in the wrong company. Some, of course, would instantly be my friend, and plead for me to get them a job standing around an adult movie set. It was great! I had found my calling. Even though I sat around the office and didn’t do anything for the first month, I felt so good. I had an opportunity to broadcast myself, or my talents to millions of people in many different mediums.

These mediums include television, radio, newsprint, the internet, telephone, and books. Dr. Suzy was everywhere already. She had kept it small, but kept it going for twelve years. Changing radio stations every couple of months, getting kicked off TV and radio stations through out the country, going on and off satellites, and building a cult following in every city that she dropped down into. But only for a few months. This was Pirate Radio.

Besides not minding the chain-smoking and jokes of sheep-fucking, there was one other reason I got this job. That would be computers. I know computers, not like self-proclaimed experts, but be it Mac or PC, I know how to get around, fix some stuff—you know change the oil—make them work better. This was exactly what Max was looking for. Before I knew it I was buying new machines, and learning the wonderful world of HTML (web page design). Happy as a pig in shit. My job had expanded once more, from simple video edits for cable access shows, to full-on Internet Site design. I was a video editor, camera man, and now Webmaster! With a little help from my friend Pete, I had two Dr. Suzy web sites going, totaling close to thirty pages of info, pictures, and links. It was all new to me, but I quickly learned that the key to a good web site is to rip-off as many other web sites as possible. Steal backgrounds, buttons, and icons, as well as pictures. The beauty of the Internet is that there are no rules. Sure there’s some sort of fuzzy lined rules about what you can and cannot say, and some sort of censorship that seems only to be another bizarre and totally useless campaign of little ribbons. I never could figure that Free-Speech thing out. People were afraid that the government could stop us from buying computers and publishing anything we want...I guess 1984 was not too long ago. The Web is a playground for kids of all ages. A place where I can show my cock, and have no worries about who sees it. And it is not about putting up some bullshit sign about how if you are under 18 you should not enter....What the fuck!?! When I was 14 I had a page long list of phone numbers to old-school Electronic Bulletin Board Systems’ (BBS’s) that were only porno pictures!

If you go to our web site (http://DrSusanBlock.com), you’ll find only the slightest warning, recommending that if you are under age, you should get your parents permission. I do realize that people are trying to cover their asses, and that’s okay. I am just glad that censors like America On-Line and the government are losing business and losing in court.

The web has been great fun for us all. Especially the fact that we are getting a lot of hits now. As of today, The counts average 10,000 a day, or 1000 people. Now some of you internet masters will quickly scoff at that low number...but living in LA, where bullshit rules all, and even has the right-of-way over the cars, all I ever hear is “We are getting 100,000 hits a day!” or “We’re gonna have this great Web Site, it’s gonna be huge! — No it’s not up yet.” That brings up another issue, “hits” are NOT people a hit is an action or page visited by a person. The average person on our site, may create 12-20 hits on a visit. Something advertisers don’t really want to tell you. Our measly 1000 people dropping by a day is great! That’s 1000 more people who know about what we have to say. That’s a lot of people, and a hell of a lot more than we could cram into this hotel, and talk to individually. 

Which brings me to one of the best things about this company. Our most effective form of advertising is the party. Every week we have a party. We never invite anybody, we simply let word of mouth take its course. These parties are of course when we film/broadcast the Dr. Susan Block Show, and we do it in front of whomever shows up. Usually an audience of 5-25 people. From Porno Stars to magazine publishers, authors to doctors, Dominatrixes and Slaves to drug dealers and entertainment executives. One by one these people come down to the Institute and learn what we have to say. They listen to Max tell stories about getting arrested for 37 counts of conspiracy to publish obscene material, and they get hit on by the many horny guys roaming around. They see our dusty cigarette smoke covered equipment, and wonder in amazement. They look at our consumer grade 4 year-old video camera and are baffled how we make such a beautiful image. It is truly a sight. One by one they fall in love. So 300-400 a day, reading over similar stories, looking at dirty pictures, and learning about vibrators is great!

I managed to arrive in this bizarre and wonderful work environment at the perfect time. As soon as I got there, HBO started filming for a new show called RadioSex TV with Dr. Susan Block. By the time you read this the pilot will have aired. Actually, we just received our first ratings report, and it looks like not only did we rate number one for the day (Friday, May 31st), but we also placed third for the week. You must note here that HBO advertised the show for only one week. Two million people watched Dr. Suzy buzz herself! HBO means big time. Those three letters are more powerful than the nine of the huge HOLLYWOOD sign. Simply mentioning HBO started the ball rolling. One by one the calls started coming in. All the evening magazine shows started knocking on the door. We even got censored by Hard Copy. Can you imagine being censored by one of the sleaziest TV show on the air?! Why, I guess some guy in a big chair didn’t jive with the fact that we said it was okay to fuck and not okay to kill people. Either way, good controversy. The HBO ball kept rolling and got bigger when Dr. Suzy’s new book The 10 Commandments of Pleasure hit the streets. We went off on a big ‘ole book tour courtesy of St. Martin’s Press, and just like that radio interviews, TV shows, one right after the next. Finally landing at the doors of Westwood One, the largest radio syndicators in the country, partners with Infinity (a.k.a. Howard Stern), and owners of hundreds of radio stations, including K-ROQ. They loved the Dr., and while things are still in the works at this point, it won’t be long till America weakens in the knees to the purr of Dr. Suzy whispering into radioland.

Now I am happy. Almost all of my simple needs are fulfilled. I have a great job, a great car, a good apartment, and a few good friends. All I could hope for at this point is money, of course, and a girlfriend. Simple needs, I don’t wish for world peace, or an overthrow of the government, I just want to be comfortable, have some security in my wallet, and cuddle up to a cute girl every night. My pleasures are simple, and I don’t even begin to sweat not having them. I learned that at the Blueberry Festival in Maine it isn’t about Martini’s, fast women, and sexy cars, it’s about blueberries. Should I pick a $100 worth of blueberries today, or spend the afternoon lying by the river, watching half naked hippie chicks frolic? In blueberryland, pleasure is sitting in a warm, clean outhouse.

Love will find me, there is no sense worrying about it, or making an ass of myself by hitting on girls in bars. Money will come, someday, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, and I’ll be happier.

After spending four years in a cold upstate NY institution, hating everything and everybody, I had only hoped of being as I am now, content. I feel so lucky that I had the opportunity of escaping into the woods of Maine. Blueberries allowed me to step back and re-organize. Other kids my age run off to Europe, drink on the corner, or watch TV. To each his own, I suppose, but for me it took full removal from society and the city. Those three weeks of hard labor, and sunning myself prefaced life in LA more perfectly than I could have ever imagined.

So that is what I am about, why I am here and where I hope to go. Some of my problems and concerns, as well as pleasures. Pleasures that you will find throughout this magazine. Pleasures of everyday people like myself. Pleasures that you write about and concerns you have with the world around you. This is a journal of many things, but most of all a journal of free speech by the readers. It’s a simple concept. You send us words, pictures, etc., and we publish them. Not too difficult to understand, and even easier to do. So sit down at your computer, and massage your brain. We want to hear about it. Tell us a fantasy, a story, a diary entry, a movie review (both mainstream and adult), a great restaurant you ate at last night. Send in editorials, poems, pictures, whatever. We are offering you, the reader, a chance to be published in a major publication. You don’t have to be famous, a good writer, or have a brother that works for the LA Weekly. No power trips here, and no Hollywood who-knows-who connections necessary. Just a stamp or an e-mail account. Please come join us, and find even more pleasures in your life.