'Meet the Detectives' and 'Man into Putty.'

Pieces from back when I researched by reading the telephone book.

This weekend I watched a disturbing documentary by the New York Times on the career trajectory of Anthony Pellicano. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he is/was a famous “Hollywood fixer” who had a high profile wire-tapping trial that revealed he had, on occasion, sometimes ‘fixed things’ for various studio heads as well as contributed to the defense Michael Jackson and Stephen Seagal, listened in on the phone conversations of famous comedians like Garry Shandling and Chris Rock. threatened assorted journalists, and helped famous lawyers gain the advantage over their wives during their ugly divorce proceedings. He eventually served thirty months in a federal prison for weapons charges, racketeering and wiretapping. It’s an interesting documentary for fans of the true crime genre.

But the reason I am mentioning it at all is that it contains about 20 seconds of footage of Mr. Pellicano that was shot by me!

In the latter part of the 1980’s (and a lot of the 1990’s) one of my previous incarnations in this lifetime was as a reporter, sort of. I am qualifying it because I only reported on odd things that were of interest to me but otherwise of little consequence to the bigger moment. The pieces I wrote were sometimes for my magazine columns (New York Woman, New Woman, Buzz) and sometimes on video for the 10:00 news on KCOP, Ch. 13 in Los Angeles where I had a segment called ‘Merrill’s L.A.’ in 1986/87. It was a great (low-paying) job in which the news room director gave me carte-blanche to pursue pretty much anything I wanted. In reviewing our 10:00 newscast, Los Angeles Magazine called me “the weirdest most disturbing lifestyle reporter to hit the tube in some time.” I took it as a compliment.

I produced one to two video essays a week (a service I also used to provide,among other things, for the very first iteration of the Letterman show)

And I did my research for these pieces by reading the yellow pages of the phone book. (For anyone too young to have ever seen a phone book…the yellow pages were as close to a pre-internet google search as you could get without sifting thru microfiche at the library.) So I would carefully inspect all the ads for everything, page by yellow page. I would examine their business claims and their logos. And I would dog ear any pages that provided an easy route into all the corners of the world about which that I had unanswered questions. Then I’d make an exploratory phone call to get their permission and a few days later, would show up with a page of notes and a news crew of one (the camera/sound man.) to roll tape for a few hours. Later I would carefully trawl through all the accumulated footage and assemble whatever seemed like the best version of the results.

In one of these pieces, I decided to have a look at the people were who were running ads in the yellow pages advertising their services as private detectives. I ended up getting four people to agree to let me show up with my crew . And the fourth detective I interviewed turned out to be Anthony Pellicano. In 1986 he was just another ‘private eye’, hoping to attract clients thru the yellow pages. Of the group that I interviewed, I remember thinking he had the most foreboding vibe, even back then. But that was a distinctive thing about my completely naive approach to information gathering, which I now view with a lot more trepidation than I ever did in the moment. Looking back 30 years later, I am struck by the cavalier way I blithely inserted myself into weird situations about which I knew basically nothing.

I was kind of fearless in a stupid way back then. There I would be, sitting alone in a room somewhere with an assortment of men about whom I knew nothing and had only approached because they were advertising ‘colorful’ services for sale in the yellow pages. At least when I did these pieces for video, the newsroom knew of my whereabouts. But when I did them for my magazine columns, no one had any idea what I was up to except me. This lead to a lot of very strange first person encounters; a man who called himself ‘a love channeler’, one who was a representative of ‘a inter-stellar star fleet’, one who wanted to teach me how to sell stun guns, one who was offering ‘a screen test’. Other stuff too.

Here is the piece I assembled for News 13 about some LA detectives from the yellow pages in the mid 1986. I called the piece

1. MEET THE DETECTIVES.

In addition to my fascination with the yellow pages, another regular supplier of content for me in those days was the catalog from The Learning Annex, an aggregator of eccentric specialty seminars. I would find these catalogs sitting in a stack on the floor of coffee houses and small restaurants. And I would circle the ones that made my jaw drop.

To give you another example, the following piece was among the most memorable of these seminars. Although that catalog never offered much detail, as a long time spackling enthusiast, when I saw that someone was teaching a class called “How to Turn a Man Into Putty in Your Hands.” I knew I could get a column out of it no matter what it turned out to be. The results originally appeared in a book (that I’m pretty sure is out of print) called Merrill Markoe’s Guide to Love. While writing this book, I attended every seminar in the L.A. area that was selling wisdom about finding love. I’m glad I did it back then because I doubt I would be willing to jump into the middle of this stuff now.

Trigger warning: This piece is not about spackling. It is full of explicit sexual content. If that kind of thing that offends you, I recommend that you turn back now. Save yourself! Run! Run away! BTW: this might be the most sexually explicit piece I ever post on substack.

2. “HOW TO TURN A MAN INTO PUTTY.”

I found a pile of catalogs for The Learning Annex in the corner on the floor of the a frozen yogurt parlor.

Some Learning Annex catalogs. Naturally there was one that had Trump on the cover from back in the 90’s when he was mostly a water/steak/fake university salesman.

Of the many courses being offered, “How to Turn a Man into Putty in Your Hands.” stood right out. Although I admit, my first thought was “Isn’t putty awfully hard to get off your hands?”

“Do you wonder if you’re really satisfying your lover?” the catalog sales pitch asked, “Do you have questions about oral sex that you are too embarrassed to ask a friend?” And even though I definitely have the kind of friends it’s pretty hard to be embarrassed around, I thought I’d play both ends against the middle and invite my friend Kristine to attend with me.

The course was being held at a newish hotel in Santa Monica. The man who took my credit card number over the phone told me there would be signs in the lobby to direct us to the classroom. And in fact, when Kristine and I arrive, the lobby is awash in signs pointing to various competing functions: The Santa Monica Republican Women’s Council are meeting somewhere. So is The Indonesian Gospel Choir. And then I see what I am looking for: A series of handwritten signs with arrows drawn on them in marker and the words “Turn a Man into Putty.” They lead us to a conference room on the second floor. “Man into Putty” is all they say by the time we reach the sign-in table.

When we enter, the room is already full. There are thirty women of all shapes and sizes, ranging in age from about twenty five to fifty, seated around a large, oval conference table. They are mostly white, but there are several each of blacks, Asians and Latinos. All are nicely groomed and casually dressed. The instructor, L.Lou Paget, a pretty forty-ish former paper saleswoman, is standing at the head of the table beside a lectern, handing out a stapled course syllabus. She is dressed in a white Tee shirt and brown slacks with a belt and her light brown hair is pulled up into a clip so you can see her starburst earrings. She smiles at us latecomers as she sets many bottles of lubricants in the center of the table. “All of the lubricants we will be using today are water based,”she says, answering a question no one asked, “because were going to work with condoms and oil based lubricants, even lipstick, can damage latex.”

There you go! I have learned something already!

“Do you guys all know that this is a seminar about oral and manual sex?” she asks. Actually, I didn’t. As I quietly slip my new putty knife back into my purse, Lou hands the last remaining course syllabus to me, for Kristine and I to share. “The Sophisticates Sexuality Seminar” it reads in the largest font at the top of the page. And then inside a black and white border, in the north, east, west, and south positions, are the words “Dignity, Fun, Freedom, Access.” Apparently this is the blow job giver’s credo.

The seminar, L.Lou tells us, began to take shape about two years ago when she was having a cappuccino with a gay male friend and the subject of skill in the arena of oral sex surfaced. After she talked him into sharing his secrets with her, she realized that there were no good sources for this information. And so she began her fact finding mission in earnest.

As she talks, she opens a large cardboard box and removes “the DDJ—dildos du jour” Each one is sanitarily wrapped in clear plastic. “I should point out,” she says “that all of these dildos have been used only by hands and mouths.”And then, to further document her hygienic precautions, she produces a Polaroid of all the didos in the top rack of her dishwasher.

“Its a very politically correct assortment,” she points out, as she walks among us, exhibiting the dildo collection. “You will each have your choice: Six inches or eight inches, black,white, or mulotto.” As she removes each one, she places it on a white china plate. Because after all, this IS “The Sophisticates Sexuality Seminar” and we sophisticates tend to prefer a simple china pattern.

“Some of you may have to share,” she says, looking at me and Kristine as she hands us our plate of dildo: Pink, eight inches, made of bendable latex and obviously cast off a real person because it even has veins. “I hope and pray this is the last time you and I ever share something like this,” I say to Kristine, “This is the kind of thing that could really ruin a friendship.”

“They’re amazingly life-like, says the Asian woman in the red shirt and suspender pants across the table. She pats her dildo on the head, causing it to bounce like a recently sprung diving board. Now we are instructed to put a dollop of a lubricant that apparently heats up if you blow on it onto our hands. It feels kind of good, despite the voice in my head that is warning me “Heat in the genital area? Won’t that be all the sensuous feeling of a urinary tract infection?” But that is only one of the lubricants available in this first section of the class, which is titled “Your Hands. His World.” This turns out to be an area in which our instructor has compiled an impressive list of possible ways to make two hands on a phallus simulate penetration. Looking at the carefully drawn chart, it reminds me a little of the knot tying page in The Girl Scout Handbook: All those different ways to tie a piece of rope, each with an individual name.

We begin with “Ode to Bryan” named after the friend of the instructor who shared this method with her. “Its a continuous motion,” Lou tells us, as she demonstrates the move on her dildo. “Hand over hand, over…up…and down with a twist. Then we start again.” Kristine and I take turns attempting to replicate what she has shown us. “How do you do the return?” I ask Kristine, who is apparently a faster study than I am. “It’s over the top, then turn, and twist,”she corrects me,“It’s a little like kneading bread.” All around us, women are working in earnest to master this, our first assignment. The room becomes filled with the kind of cheerful peculiar banter that you might find at a Tupperware party hosted by Hieronymous Bosch.

“Don’t forget ‘the step children’.” says our instructor, using her designated nickname for the testicles. It is a name she chose when someone pointed out to her that the testicles are a part of the man that many women mistakenly ignore. “It’s almost as if they treat them like stepchildren,” was what her friend had pointed out to her. It is the kind of cute nickname that makes me very uncomfortable. Then again, I get embarrassed having to say “A short cup of latte” when I order at Starbucks.

“The most sensitive area of the penis is that V-shaped section in the back. The first one and a half inches.” the instructor tells us as we all try to locate it on our dildos the way we looked for Australia on a globe during geography in junior high.

Next we move on to a technique which the instructor has named “basketweaving.” As she demonstrates how the fingers are interwoven together and made to pulsate intermittently, she is greeted by a round of “Oooh”and “Aaaah.” from her attentive disciples. It’s a little like on QVC when they bring out a new ring or bracelet during “The Discover Diamonique Hour.”

Now we move on to “Temple and Mitzvah”…a kind of “This is the church, this is the steeple” variation. “This is powerful stuff” L.Lou warns us, “I heard of one man who passed out and another one who threw out his back from the hand-job blow-job combination.” “Something to look forward to,” Kristine whispers.

We now find ourselves advancing to Section Two, the “Your Mouth, His Universe” portion of the syllabus. Clearly, we have taken a big step up from the puny ‘His World’ that was ‘Your Hands’. But first we must make a pit stop at one of the evening’s more scenic vistas: “The Italian Method” which turns out to be a lesson in how to put a condom on someone using only your mouth. Why you would want to do this remains a mystery to this day, but it begins with a Japanese tea ceremony kind of a move in which the instructor applies lubricant to the dildo from a fairly substantial height. Add to that an unexpected moment where she shows us all how to put a coiled condom between our lips, reservoir tip in, and the next thing I know I am sitting in the middle of a tableau vivant of random women, all of whom have condoms between their lips. It looks like “Night of the Living Blow Up Dolls.”

The next time I check the front of the room, our instructor is poised like a sword-swallower to demonstrate how to glide our heads down, smoothly unfurling the condom on the dildo along the way. This, it turns out, is a real crowd-pleaser.

There are still many techniques left to cover this evening because it appears that there is now so much more to this whole blow-job thing than the simple sucking action employed by the ladies of yesteryear. For instance, there is something called “strumming the frenulum.” And “the snackbar approach” where a conveniently stashed bedside beverage assortment allows you to change the temperature in your mouth from cold to hot and then back again. Also, it turns out that you can change the flavor of a man’s semen simply by changing his diet. Vegetarians apparently taste better. “Kiwi, pineapple and celery make it taste sweeter,” says our instructor, “Asparagus and garlic make it more bitter.” This is as good a reason for advance menu planning as any I have encountered.

Among other things, we learn that deep-throating is a matter of angle and that“humming” is also an option, though we are not given any hints about what to hum. Because I am me, I become preoccupied trying to select the perfect song for this occasion. But by the time I finally settle on the Smith’s “Girlfriend in a Coma” I realize I’’ve been tuned out and have lost my place in class. “Where are we?” I ask Kristine. “In back of the step children.” she tells me.

The hour is growing late. People have begun to get up from their chairs and put on their coats. The table becomes littered with abandoned plates still full of dildos, like the end of a sloppy banquet at Jeffrey Dahmer’s. We have the option, at this point, of purchasing some of that heat and serve lubricant. I buy a bottle of Irish Creme, an impulse purchase inspired by the fact that I skipped dinner and now I am starving.

Not long after, a bunch of us ride down to the lobby in the elevator together. The cheery camaraderie of the conference room slowly fades back into stony elevator silence. By the time the doors open, we are all back to being uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed. But we are also newly empowered: the sisterhood of the blow job. We are almost the equivalent of certified. An elite corp of specialists who can be called up in emergencies, though I would rather not visualize what those emergencies might possibly be.