crossposted from fb... Myra Breckenridge

Let me share how I, a guy who had an airshift at a classic rock station, discovered the truth about one of my favorite songs. The movie was MYRA BRECKINRIDGE. 1970, Racquel Welch, John Huston, Rex Reed. Myron (RR's character) undergoes a sex change and becomes Myra (RW), because of course Rex would look like Racquel after gender reassignment with 1970's era surgical technology, why not? Myra goes to Hollywood to take part ownership in her uncle's acting ranch, because those exist. At one point she basically rapes the naive but young southern stud under her tutelage with what I have to assume was a sizeable strap-on.

Yeah at that point I was also wondering why I was still watching it. Still, a product of it's time, strong in a feminism message and sexual identity... sigh. I mean, I guess. The thing is, even what I described was not the traumatic part of watching that movie.

The traumatic part was Mae West, who was still somehow alive at that point (I shouldn't have been surprised... she did "Sextette" with Alice eight years later), playing an acting scout. By which I mean she was some kind of hooker who exchanged acting jobs for sexual favors in her, what I assume was a, smelly office. (Hi Magnum P.I.!) And then she hosts some kind of soiree.. and here the mental anguish began.

And let me point out that at that point in her life, Mae West would have made Joan Rivers look like Anna Kendricks singing "Cups." Back in 1970, plastic surgery was not, apparently, to be taken lightly. So Mae West is *carried* a'la to be sacrificed by the tribe Jessica Lange gets captured by in King Kong (1976) in one of the most racist scenes I've EVER seen, sings a song basically about sexytime, and then breaks out into "Hard To Handle" while a bevy of African-Americans dance behind her, in a manner that was wrong even back then. OH. GOD. THIS HAPPENED. She was like Dolly Imhotep Parton preparing some kind of ritual sacrifice to the Elder Gods to keep herself young. I'm frankly surprised Tom Selleck wasn't wheeled onstage to have his heart cut out so she could bite from it and gain immortaliy.

So yeah, that's how I learned "Hard to Handle" wasn't a Black Crowe's original. Hoping I never find out the origin of "She Talks To Angels." Three tomatoes.