Tangents
News and Views
July 1966 • Vol. 1 No. 10
Originally published in the July 1966 issue of Tangents
pp. 9–11.
EDMOND, OKLA.—The topless craze had better get set for a shakedown if and when it reaches the hinterlands. In this Oklahoma college town of 9,000, coed Mary Lou Hood, a 36-24-36, stirred the wrath of some of her neighbors by wearing a two-piece bathing suit while mowing her lawn. Five complaints, including one from a 31-year-old pastor of a non-denominational country church, charged her with indecent exposure. Just 19 minutes after Mary Lou entered the crowded municipal courtroom of Judge Bob Rudkin, the complaints were wiped out. Judge Rudkin said: “The court finds that these are not lewd photos and there is not sufficient evidence to establish lewdness or indecent exposure by established standards of the community.”
SAN JOSE, CALIF.—A young Catholic priest who loved to befriend teenagers was beaten to death with tire irons by a teenaged gang for the $45 he carried, police reported recently. For $5, the same gang waylaid and killed a warehouseman with tire iron blows, then ran over his body with an automobile, according to police. “Senseless, absolutely senseless,” Police Capt. William McKenzie said after six youths were booked in the two brutal slayings. Bart Collins, chief of police detectives, said the gang admitted 10 strong-arm holdups in addition to the two killings. Collins said Jack Brito, Jr., 16, booked in both slayings, was used as the ruse in the crimes because of his clean-cut appearance. The vicinity of a downtown park was used as the site for him to seek pickups. Brito was listed by police as the youth who jumped out in front of the priest’s car in the early morning hours, shouting “I’m being chased by a man with a gun.” After the youth was picked up, be was followed in another car by other gang members to a spot favorable for the attack. This was the pattern used in most of the gang’s robbery-assaults.
Los ANGELES—Louis Silverman, an unemployed businessman, was taking no chances of being arrested for speeding. So—he was stopped for driving too slowly on the Santa Monica Freeway. During what officers called a routine check of Silverman’s car, they reportedly noticed some photographs hidden beneath the rear seat and decided to examine the auto more closely. Investigators allegedly found some 5,000 obscene photographs, 100 prurient books and 117 films described as obscene. Silverman was arrested and indicted by the County Grand Jury on felony charges of possessing obscene literature.
BERKELEY , CALIF,—A 29-year-old Navy electronics technician who was convicted of lewd conduct in a Berkeley public lavatory on March 30, 1965, and placed on probation was ordered discharged from the Navy for misconduct last month, but with an honorable discharge. The man was married and bad two small children. He bad served in the Navy for almost eleven years with an unblemished record. As a condition of probation for the Berkeley offense, be received psychiatric help for “periodic homosexual acting out.” His clinical psychologist declared, “it is my considered opinion” that the individual “can refrain from this behavior in the future.” At the hearing, he was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to the Berkeley Barb, the first nude party of the Eastbay Sexual Freedom League got off to a slow start recently. People began arriving at 9 o’clock, but the first problem was bow to get them out of their clothes. People continued to file in, but many were reluctant to disrobe. Finally, at 9:30, an announcement was made that no one could remain if still clothed. That worked. Later there was music and dancing—the Watusi and the Jerk. “I like watching it this way,” said one person on the sidelines. “You can see the very muscles of the body working rhythmically and you can tell better what somebody is expressing.” The ESFL declared the party a success.
SAN FRANCISCO—The Fourth National Convention of Daughters of Bilitis, Inc, will be held at the Jack Tar Hotel, August 19–21; Consultation on Theology and the Homosexual, sponsored by the Theology Committee of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, August 22–24; National Planning Conference of Homophile Organizations, Bellevue Hotel August 25–27.
In a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, a citizen complained : “While our Muni bus drivers are being beaten up, little old ladies are having their purses snatched and countless other atrocities are happening on the streets of San Francisco, our Police Department has its vice squad officers draped in towels sitting around hot steam rooms.” The writer suggested that the police put their clothes on and get out into the streets.
Los ANGELES — Humorist Matt Weinstock in the Los Angeles Times tells of a Sherman Oaks woman who took her auto to a car wash on a recent Saturday and was slightly awed at the sight of a tall young man in hip boots working in the suds section of the assembly line. Atop his head were at least a dozen bright pink plastic hair rollers. Said the lady: “If he wanted to be lovely for Saturday night but couldn’t get to the beauty shop, why couldn’t he at least cover his curlers in public.”
Originally published in the July 1966 issue of Tangents magazine
©1966, 2018 by The Tangent Group. All rights reserved.
