Book Review: The Compound

Book Review: 'The Compound' by William Gale

3 / 5 Stars

Gimme the broom….

Late November, 1973. On a cold night in the urban wasteland of the South Bronx, a drag queen named Jocelyn (real name William Battles) is out on the town, hitting the parties at the gang hangouts. Jocelyn decides to stop in at a party held in the clubhouse of the Black Spades. She soon discovers that the Spades aren’t fond of drag queens – ‘Faggot ! Faggot !’ -  and she flees for her life.

Gimme the broom…. 

As she frantically tries to run away from the grounds of the apartment tower, teetering on her high heels, a mob of Spades emerge from the clubhouse. They knock her to the ground…….and begin beating her.

Jocelyn screams as her dress is torn off, and hands grip her legs, holding her immobile…….

Gimme the broom…. 

 As of 2024, no one has been arrested for the murder of William Battles.

 

The South Bronx became a pop culture touchstone in the early 1980s thanks to films such as ‘Wolfen’ (1981) and ‘Fort Apache: The Bronx’ (1981), but the decay of the borough actually began in the late 1960s.

By the early 1970s, the New York city media were touting the South Bronx as a hellhole, an exemplar being the March 27, 1972 issue of New York magazine, the cover of which showed an array of gang colors, along with the blurb ‘Are you ready for the new ultra-violence ? The return of the New York street gang.’

And in fact, the South Bronx indeed was a hellhole. One particular site in the hellhole is the subject of this investigative report by William Gale, first published in hardcover in 1977 by Rawson Associates, and as a Ballantine Books paperback a year later.

‘The Compound’ was, in reality, a complex of five apartment buildings on Bryant Avenue in the Bronx. From 1971 to 1973 hundreds of black and Puerto Rican youths, affiliated with gangs such as the Savage Nomads, the Mongols, and the Latin Diplomats (in real life, the Ghetto Brothers), used the complex both as a clubhouse, and as a drug-dealing emporium. That the gangs were able to commandeer an apartment complex and use it for criminal purposes, with little interference from the city government, shows how dysfunctional mayor James Lindsay’s administration had become by the early 1970s.

Over the 242 pages of ‘The Compound’, author Gale relates the (mis)adventures of some of the residents (who are given pseudonyms). These are a colorful lot, and include the endearing teenaged lovers ‘Amelia’ and ‘Slick’, whose affection for each other was tested by Amelia’s pregnancy. There is ‘Carlton Williams’, aka ‘Brother Sunshine’, an idealist whose advocacy for peace ended when he suffered Severe Head Trauma while trying to defuse a confrontation. There is ‘Sex Machine’, president of the Angels gang, whose unrestrained priapism was curtailed to some extent after his sentencing to 25 years to life for first-degree murder. And let us not forget ‘Black Bongo’, supreme leader of the Savage Nomads, and his wife, ‘Big Mama’, ‘….a chunky, thick-featured Puerto Rican who wore her mahogany-colored hair frizzed over her ears like a pair of electrified ear muffs.’ And then there is the fifteen year-old ‘Popsicle,’ whose maltreatment of suspected turncoat led to the imposition of ghetto justice at the hands of Black Bongo.

One thing ‘The Compound’ is vague about, is exactly how author Gale observed, or paraphrased, the actions and conversations of the individuals profiled in the book. The book has no source notes, citations, or footnotes. What role the book’s two co-authors, city detectives Ed O’Rourke and Vito Moles, played as sources for the described events is not clear. Presumably some of the dialogue and actions are reconstructed from courtroom testimonies and documents, but Gale provide no indication as to whether this was the case. These failures of sourcing limit use of ‘The Compound’ as a historical narrative.

If you are interested in the social pathologies and criminal culture of New York city during the early 70s, then you will find ‘The Compound’ an engaging, if at times alarming, read. Just keep in mind that external documentation of the events portrayed in the book is lacking.

HVAC Reading July 2024

HVAC Reading

July, 2024

It's midsummer here in Central Virginia, which means it's best to stay indoors when it's 90 degrees and 80% RH outside. Stay indoors, and run the HVAC......this makes it pleasant to sit in my easy chair, and read paperbacks. I got a bunch (above) to tide me through the summer and into the start of Fall (which usually happens the first or second week of October). Three New Wave-era anthologies, and three anthologies from the Paperbacks from Hell era.

 

I have some cold beers and sodas at hand.......

Book Review: City Dogs

Book Review: 'City Dogs' by William Brashler

2 / 5 Stars

William Brashler was born in 1947 and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He worked as a police reporter in North Chicago, and used this experience in composing ‘City Dogs.’ Of the fiction and nonfiction books Brashler published during the 1970s and 1980s, the best-known of these is ‘The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings,’ published in 1973 and made into a 1976 movie starring Billy Dee Williams.

‘City Dogs’ first was published in 1976 in hardback. This Signet paperback edition (217 pp.) was published in November, 1977. The cover artist is uncredited. 

The novel is set in Chicago in the Fall of 1969. The protagonist is a middle-aged wino, and former thief, named Harry Lumkowski. Harry spends his dissipated days getting drunk on cheap wine, snatching purses, breaking into the trunks of parked cars, and lying on thin mattresses in fleabag hotels.

Harry isn’t above getting sober if it means he can participate in a robbery that will leave him with more money than what he gets from his monthly unemployment check. So, Harry doesn’t object when two small-time punks, Jimmy Del Corso and Donald Ray Burl, decide to recruit him for what promises to be a lucrative job. 

The problem, is, Del Corso and Burl aren’t too bright, and even an alcoholic like Harry can see that there is a good likelihood of the heist going bad. But the Chicago Winter isn’t that far away, and Harry is willing to take a risk if it means an easier life during the long, cold months ahead…….. 

While ‘City Dogs’ is marketed as a crime novel, it is in fact an effort at the genre of American Realism. The plot is rather thin, and serves as a scaffold upon which the author can expound on the lives and troubles of his cast of characters. Brashler’s prose is unwaveringly hardboiled, with the similes and metaphors that are obligatory to that diction:

There were more men on the street now….looking up with faces that looked like the tops of cans that had been ripped open, eyes buried in the sockets, lips that hung and flapped for saliva.

The narrative emphasizes telling, rather than showing, and as a result, readers will need to endure lengthy internal monologues, and passages describing the internal torments and dilemmas, of the personages with whom Harry interacts. These passages become increasingly tedious as the novel unfolds.

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that the characters in ‘City Dogs’ are not particularly likeable, and by the time I reached the final chapters, I was rather indifferent to their fates.

Summing up, ‘City Dogs’ is a middling effort at an urban noir novel. If you are fond of novels set on the mean streets of Chicago, then you may find it worthwhile, but those looking for exemplars of American Realism from the 1970s are directed to Richard Price’s 1974 novel ‘The Wanderers,’ or Vern E. Smith’ 1974 novel ‘The Jones Men’.

The Ghetto Brothers Power Fuerza

The Ghetto Brothers  

Power - Fuerza

1972

The Ghetto Brothers were a street gang active in the South Bronx during the late 1960s, and through the 1970s. Primarily comprised of a Puerto Rican and black membership, the gang was formed, and led, by Benjy Melendez. Melendez had an artistic side, and he, along with his brothers Victor and Robert, David Silva, Luis Bristo, Chiqui Conception, Franky Valentin, and Angelo Garcia, formed an eponymous band to play at various social functions in the neighborhood.

 

In 1972, the band paid $500 to record an LP in Fine Tone Studios in Manhattan. Titled Power-Fuerza, the LP had a small pressing, but nonetheless gained the group some coverage. It since has become a very rare collector's item.

 

A CD of the album was issued in 2008, and also has become a high-priced collector's item. However, an affordable mp3 of Power-Fuerza is available at amazon, and at the Vampi-Soul records webpage. 

 

The eight songs on Power-Fuerza show influences from a variety of sources, including soul, R & B, Latin music, rock, and the vocal harmonies commonplace in the classic pop songs of the 1950s and 1960s. 

 

Evoking a unique, multicultural sensibility, the album is well worth a listen, especially if you are interested in the street culture of New York City in the 1970s. 

 

Benjy Melendez has published a memoir of his days as a Ghetto Brother in the South Bronx, 'Ghetto Brother: How I Found Peace in the South Bronx Street Gang Wars,' also available at amazon.

Book Review: The Seventh Power

 

Book Review: 'The Seventh Power' by James Mills

3 / 5 Stars

'The Seventh Power' (224 pp.) was published by Jove Books in October, 1977. The cover artist is uncredited.

James Mills (1932 - 2011) wrote a number of novels set in the grimier milieu of New York City. He is best known for his 1966 novel 'The Panic in Needle Park,' which was made in to a 1971 film starring Al Pacino, and his 1972 novel 'Report to the Commissioner,' which was a bestseller and also turned into a film. 'The Power' (1990) is a cold war spy novel. One of Mills's most celebrated books, the nonfiction 'The Underground Empire' (1986) later was the subject of an expose in the Los Angeles Times, whose investigation revealed that some of the book's content was fabricated or misrepresented.

'Seventh' is set in late 70s New York City. Lead character Adelaide, aka 'Aizy' (her surname never is disclosed) is a brilliant but deeply troubled girl from a wealthy family. As a student at Princeton, she becomes infatuated with soul brother Bobby Fletcher. Bobby persuades Aizy to sign on to a conspiracy: make an atomic bomb, and use it to extort a comittment from the U.S. government to address poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

To acquire plutonium for the bomb, Bobby recruits a street criminal named 'Stoop' Youngblood. Together, the three conspirators set up shop in a decaying tenement building. Aizy knows her physics, and her engineering, and crafting a low-yield nuke in the kitchen is not all that difficult. And when the trio announce their intentions, and their ransom demands, to the authorities, life for people living in what could be a Manhattan nuclear detonation zone is going to get very, very interesting.....  

The first half of 'Seventh' is an engaging read, as author Mills goes about setting up the characters and the plot via short, to-the-point chapters suffused with ironic humor. The descriptions of assembling a 'kitchen sink' atomic bomb have the verisimilitude necessary to grant credibility to the idea of nuclear blackmail. Where the narrative loses momentum, however, is in the final third of the novel, where - the authorities having been given an Ultimatum - we are treated to page after page of terse, declarative Police Procedural text:

"So what's the alternative ?"

"Get between her and the bomb. Get the damned thing away from her."

"Ideas ?"

Two of the men started quarreling and two others moved away and conferred in whispers. Ransom heard the word 'ambassador,' and one of them, a young, scrubbed, red-headed man in a blue blazer, left the room.

Random sat down and someone called in Dusko. He said his boss, the DA, was on the way in from Long Island.

"We can't wait," Carrol said, and began a discussion Ransom didn't hear.

This 'standing around and talking' stuff goes on too long, and contributes little save narrative padding. I won't disclose any spoilers about the novel's denouement, save to say that when it finally does arrive, it allows the author to have his cake, and eat it too.

'The Seventh Power' is a solid, but not overly memorable 1970s New York City crime / thriller novel. If you like that genre, and novels such as 'The Black Death,' and 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three', it may appeal to you.

Penthouse July 1986

Penthouse

July 1986

July, 1986, and Peter Gabriel's single 'Sledgehammer' sits atop the Billboard Hot 100.

The July issue of Penthouse is on the stands, featuring Pet Krista Pflanzer on the cover.

 

The magazine still has a healthy page count, but it clearly is in a transitional period. For one thing, the advent of videocassettes is irrevocably changing the 'adult' entertainment landscape. No longer were redblooded American males reliant on print media for thrills and titillation; anyone with a TV, a VCR, and a credit card, could have porn delivered to their houses or apartments. The July Penthouse has its share of videocassette ads in its back pages; the same things that eventually would kill the magazine are, at least in 1986, bringing in needed revenue.

Does anyone remember the 'Pony' shoe brand ?! They were big in the 80s. I never bought any Pony shoes, I always was comfortable with Adidas or Nike.

In the July issue, publisher Bob Guccione makes clear his alarm and disgust over the actions of the Reagan administration's Attorney General, Edwin Meese, who in July of '86 published 'The Meese Report' on pornography. 

Guccione was quite hostile towards Meese and the latter's efforts to curtail 'adult' magazine distribution. While the Report did not do all that much in terms of enacting federal laws to curtail porn distribution per se, it did scare many outlets into discontinuing magazine sales; for example, in April of '86, 7-11 stores stopped selling Penthouse and Forum, a move that obviously cut into Guccione's bottom line. The July issue of Penthouse had an article that was (unsurprisingly) very critical of Meese.

Turning now to the stuff that Meese didn't approve of, the Penthouse Forum still is going strong. After all, everything in the Forum was 100% true !

Probably the best pictorial in the July issue is the one featuring a German lass named Helga. She likes "...a foaming stein of Bavarian beer," and believes "...one man is enough for me."

 

The essay 'Summer Sex,' by Ellen Sherman, relates tales of summertime lust and love, 80s style. Taiwanese artist Hilo Chen provides a great accompanying illustration.

As part of his campaign to cast Ed Meese and the Reagan administration as fanatics who were denying Americans freedom of expression, and Penthouse as a patriotic manifestation of the 1st Amendment, Guccione has an artsy pictorial of the Statue of Liberty. 

The accompanying essay by sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov lends big-name credibility to the pictorial (then again, we know Asimov wasn't above doing a little bit of his own 'spicy' stuff now and then). However, Asimov's essay is less about freedom, or even the Statue of Liberty, and more about the need to construct space colonies (?!) since these are places that would be free from the mores and attitudes of people like Meese..........

Let's close our overview of the July issue with some rather lowbrow cartoons......all part of the fun, in that long-ago Summer of '86.

Book Review: Smut King

 

Book Review: 'Smut King' by George Bishop

5 / 5 Stars

'Smut King' ( 287 pp.) was published by Dell in April, 1974. The cover artist is uncredited.

George Bishop (1927 - 1994) was born in Montreal and during the 1970s and 1980s published several books. 'The Apparition' (1979) is a Paperback from Hell, while 'The Shuttle People' (1983) is science fiction. 'Witness to Evil: The Inside Story of the Tate, La Bianca Murder Trial,' published in 1971, and 'The World of Clowns', published in 1976, are nonfiction.

'Smut King,' has long been out of print, and even in the paperback collector space, copies are difficult to find. A seller at amazon wants $50 for a 'very good' copy, while eBay and Abe Books have no copies, period. I was fortunate to get an 'acceptable' copy for an affordable price, some years ago.

I should state at the outset that the book is not a sleaze novel, with lurid and explicit descriptions of hapless coeds being used and abused by scheming pornographers. The book instead is an overview of the eccentric personalities associated with the smut world; these observations are informed with measures of humor and, at times, pathos. 

While I can find no information that the novel was based on any firsthand experiences of author Bishop, it does have an 'I was there' verisimilitude........as if, for example, the author had spent time working for Milton Luros.

The novel is set in Los Angeles is the late 1960s. The eponymous King is one Jules Vengoff: overweight, grasping, scheming, a 'Semitic Nero Wolfe.' In the opening chapters, first-person narrator Jim Morgan is hired to work at 'Wickwire House', the seemingly staid publisher that serves as the front for Vengoff's porn enterprise 'Pericles Press' (which churns out XXX magazines, and mail-order 'marital aids').

The narrative follows Morgan's adventures as he learns more about Vengoff's business and the people who work for him. It's very much a nuts-and-bolts account of how the content is produced, printed, and distributed, always with an awareness of what mayhem crusading District Attorneys or Postal Inspectors might do should they find Pericles items to be offensive to their social norms.

Being clean-cut, good-looking, and a WASP in a workplace of Jews and blacks, Morgan quickly becomes a standout performer, which brings him into too-close contact with Vegoff's stunning daughter, Reva. Morgan also becomes good friends with his next-door neighbor Anita Jo, an airline stewardess who enjoys swimming in the nude. For him, fine female companionship, a good salary, and a quirky retinue of co-workers makes late-sixties L.A. a magical place to live.

The novel takes a turn in the last 30 pages, switching from a drama, to a crime novel, and a good one at that. There is a crisis, and attendant suspense and action. I won't disclose spoilers, save to say that the author avoids turning the story into a moral lesson about the evils of licentiousness.

In my opinion, 'Smut King' is a solid Five Star novel. Given the exorbitant costs to obtain a copy of the Dell paperback, is well deserving of a modern-day reprinting, and the opportunity to bring the book to a wider audience.

Savage Skulls from Esquire, June 1977

Savage Skulls
by Julian Allen
from the June, 1977 issue of Esquire magazine

Jon Bradshaw's article 'Savage Skulls' appeared in the June, 1977 issue of Esquire magazine. The above illustration, by Julian Allen, depicts the Skulls torturing Anthony Gibaldi before murdering him inside the basement of an abandoned South Bronx building during the night of July 20, 1974. It's creepy, unsettling, disturbing...... in short, an outstanding illustration.

The Esquire article serves epitomizes the reality of the decay of New York City in the 1970s.

Bradshaw's article was based on his (police-escorted) interviews and interactions with several Bronx gang members in the Winter of 1977. Most of the gangbangers he talked to were members of the Savage Skulls, a major Puerto Rican gang in the South Bronx

Whereas in the late 60s and early 70s the mainstream media had elected to portray New York City's street gangs as improvised families for youth abandoned and discarded by an uncaring, racist, classist society, by '77 the reality - that the gangs were comprised of sociopaths who routinely committed robbery, rape, and assault - could no longer be ignored, or explained away by pop sociology jargon.

As Bradshaw reveals, the Skulls hated whites "....without reservation," and they hated snitches. Anthony Gibaldi was both.....and that got him killed.

In 1973 the twenty-one year-old Gibaldi, who was mentally retarded, worked as a shoeshine boy at the intersection of Westchester Avenue and Southern Boulevard. While his family, immigrants from Italy, understood that the South Bronx was turning into a hellhole, they were reluctant to leave. Anthony was pathetically eager to make friends with others in the neighborhood, and some of the boys he consorted with were members of the Savage Skulls.

In January, 1973, while walking on Westchester Avenue, Gibaldi was robbed by two Savage Skulls, 'R. C.' and 'Popeye'. His father pressured Gibaldi to report the crime to the police. R. C. was arrested and sent to the Elmira reformatory, and Popeye, to Attica. Upon their release, both men were keen to retaliate against Gibaldi.

On the night of July 20, 1974, Gibaldi was walking through the South Bronx when he was approached by a group of Savage Skulls, who invited him to accompany them to a party nearby. Gibaldi trustingly followed the gang members into the basement of an abandoned building.

There, he was stripped naked, tied up with clotheslines, and tossed onto the floor. Then, over the ensuing hours, he was tortured by the stoned, boozing Skulls, including a vengeful Popeye, who tied a nylon cord around Gibaldi's penis and yanked so hard on it, that the cord / penis combination lifted Gibaldi's body off the floor.

After the gang spent some time stabbing the inert Gibaldi multiple times, Popeye shot him to death and burned the corpse.

According to Tom Walker in his 2011 book Return to Fort Apache: Memoir of an NYPD Captain, after the corpse was discovered, the medical examiner declared the cause of death as 'undetermined, no violence found'. Gibaldi's father denounced the Medical Examiner's declaration and over the course of the next two years pressed the police to solve the murder of his son. 

After a prolonged investigation (that revealed the corrupt and dysfunctional nature of the work done by the ME's office in the mid-70s), in October 1976, 'R. C.', aka Arce Santiago, was convicted of the murder of Anthony Gibaldi and sentenced to life in prison.

Julian Allen did illustrations for a variety of well-known magazines during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. He also illustrated the comic 'Wild Palms.' A biographical sketch is available here.

Book Review: Jones: Portrait of A Mugger

Book Review: 'Jones: Portrait of A Mugger' by James Willwerth

5 / 5 Stars

Though Jones drifts through most of his days with little regard for passing time, he expects others to be punctual - especially his women.

One night a few weeks earlier, he'd expected Carol home at 11 pm. She arrived past midnight.

"Is this eleven o'clock, Carol ?"

"It's only a few minutes after......."

"A few minutes - my fucking ass ! You say you're coming home at eleven o'clock, you be here, bitch !"

"I come home when I want, motherfucker !"

In a swift, sweeping motion Jones hit her face with the flat of his hand. She cursed at him again. His hand moved again across the space between them with the gathering force of a huge winged bird. She was knocked across the room and down.

"You don't like it," Jones said mockingly, "You can leave." 

Carol was sprawled on the floor and crying. 

"FUCK YOU, YOU CAN LEAVE, BASTARD !"

He shrugged: "All right........what the fuck.......I will."

'Jones: Portrait of A Mugger' (252 pp) was published in hardcover by M. Evans and Company in 1974. A mass-market paperback edition also is available; however, copies in good condition have very steep asking prices.

In his Forward, author Willwerth explains that in 1973, he decided to write a book about a young, black street criminal. He soon met a 24 year-old mugger, who is referred to by the pseudonym 'Jones', who was willing to allow Willwerth to observe his daily life, and interview his family and associates. 

Jones, who grew up in a New York City housing project, is half black and half Italian, and a resident of the Lower East Side of New York City. 

Over the course of the four months in which he hung out with his profilee, Willwerth comes to be something of a friend and confidant of Jones.

Willwerth meticulously records his conversations with Jones, and his interactions with Jones's parents, girlfriends, street associates, and fellow drug abusers. Jones comes to trust Willwerth enough to relate to him his strategies for mugging (for example, he dresses well when out on the streets, since a well-groomed appearance can lull potential victims in feeling a false sense of security) as well as his memories of growing up in the projects, becoming a junkie, doing time in prison, and............. staying in style.

This means dedicating most of any ill-gotten earnings to the acquisition of the best of mid-70s fashions; at one point, for example, Jones decks himself out in black platform shoes; grey knit slacks; and a bright orange satin tank top. Another time he elects to sport a pink-and-blue dashiki.

A potential drawback for a book like this is the author's decision to politicize the topic. However, although the Willwerth occasionally indulges in sententious remarks ("As long as our society tolerates ghettos........we will have muggers"), 'Jones: Portrait of A Mugger' avoids overindulging in pop sociology, pop criminology, or identity politics. 

Willwerth is a self-avowed white liberal, and at times he attributes Jones's criminal behavior to an uncaring and indifferent Society. But for the most part Willwerth wisely focuses his narrative on Jones's actions, and his explanations - which are frequently contradictory and self-serving - for his life of crime. There is some in-the-moment reporting as well:

We catch a bus for Broom street.

This is pushing it, a lot; my fear is rising. We are riding into an area of skeletal buildings. Junkies huddle on the corners like packs of starved rats; the streets are deserted in midday, stores closed, windows boarded up.......

We step off the bus and walk toward a windowless drugstore on the ground floor of a grimy brownstone....junkies all around it. The city here is diseased, dying all around me.

The junkies scatter. They probably think I am a cop. Jones recognizes one of them, a Puerto Rican with swept-back hair.

"We'll go talk to that nigger," Jones says.

He adds:

"A nigger around here don't mean a black dude, you dig ? It's a low-class dude who ain't going nowhere - that's the true meaning of the word."

I won't disclose any spoilers about what happens to Jones, save to say that a Journey to Redemption likely is not in the offing.

I finished the book thinking that it stands as an informative account of New York City and its pervasive crime in the era of the movie Death Wish, which also was released in 1974. 'Jones: Portrait of A Mugger' reveals an NYPD and criminal justice system helpless to address the epidemic of crime that grips the city. 

Even former Mayor Ed Koch was forced to acknowledge the depth of the problem - while avoiding any mention of the failure of his administration to do much about it.

'Jones' makes clear that for many New Yorkers, street crime was as unavoidable an aspect of life in the 70s as transit strikes, sanitation worker strikes, air pollution, rising taxes, and crumbling infrastructure. To live in the world of Jones and his victims was to live in a time of danger that contemporary residents of the city likely would not understand or comprehend............

July is Some Tough City month

Here at the PorPor Books Blog we like to take a break every now and then from reviewing and showcasing books in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and instead turn our attention to other genres of literature.

For July, 2024, we are going to peruse fiction and nonfiction associated with the seedier, and more dangerous, side of urban living. If you're looking for uplifting treatments of humanity, you won't find these in any of our July selections ! 

We've got muggers, thieves, pimps, hoes, crooked cops, alcoholics, drug addicts, murderers, pornographers, transvestites, gangbangers, and black revolutionaries. With that sort of a lineup, how can you possibly go wrong ?!

P.S. I got the phrase 'some tough city,' and the 'distressed' font Vtks Escape, from the title of a 1984 LP by Tony Carey. It's a good album, with the songs 'It's A Fine Fine Day' and 'First Day of Summer.'