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Christine Hopf-Lovette Marketed the 1970s Ladies Home Companion Calendar….Here is my interview with her

Half Moon Bay Memories (HMBM): What does “Bo-Tree�? mean and where was the business located?

c.jpgChristine Hopf-Lovette: Bo-Tree is the tree under which Buddha sat when he attained enlightenment. Oddly enough, the name came from my mother, a librarian. I told her I was entering into a publishing venture. I failed to enlighten her about the exact nature of our first product, however.

The company was first headquartered in my apartment in San Francisco. After a year or so, we rented space in the back of an old Victorian on an alley off Union Street.

HMBM: What did Bo-Tree originally produce? Was there something before the Ladies Home Companion Calendar?

Christine: The Ladies Home Companion was our first product.

HMBM: This was, when? The early 1970s– or earlier? Producing books and calendars was very different then [note: I’ve had some experience with both.] You had to hire a typesetter & designer– please tell me about the process, how different it was from today.

Christine: The calendar grid and all the type was pasted on boards that were delivered to the printer along with the photos. The printer made plates and the job was printed by the offset litho method. I don’t think the printing method has changed much but the preprint materials have changed tremendously since the advent of computers.

HMBM: You did the marketing: what did that mean? You contacted the press, got the books into the stores? Which bookstores? Nationwide? How did you sell, pre-Internet?

Christine: We marketed the calendars through gift and stationery reps. We found our first reps through a directory. Some worked but some did not. I remember that we had hired a rep in southern California—a firm that was recommended by our New York rep. Judy [Horst] flew down to the Los Angeles Gift Show. She called me after the first day to say that the rep wasn’t even displaying the calendars. He seemed to be hiding them under the table. The rep was uncomfortable with the product, to say the least.

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Ladies Home Companion: Carol (Fulton) Turner Took The Pictures

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Bo-Tree Productions published three Ladies Home Companion calendars for the years 1973, 74 & 75. Bo-Tree also printed photos of male models on a deck of playing cards, address and day book. Carol (Fulton) Turner and Judy Horst– who came up the fantastic idea of a male pin-up calendar– shot the photos of the models.

Both Holst and Fulton used Pentax cameras and placed the male models in scenes that evoked the aura of the Victorian era. The calendar could be ordered in “bordello red.” It was a magnificent project carried off at the right time.

Here is my email interview with photographer Carol (Fulton) Turner, who, in 1973, casually dressed, drove to the shoots in her Porsche 914. Half Moon Bay Memories: How did you find and choose the models for the Ladies Home Companion (LHC)?

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Carol (Fulton) Turner: I know many cute guys (including Mark Frasier)

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HMBM: You are a photographer….What other projects did you work on before LHC?

Carol: I was actually a designer. I took a few night classes at a Junior College. Judy saw some fun nude shots I took of women I knew. They were done in the same sepia technique. I sold them in an auction which was a fundraiser. This look sparked the graphic concept for the calendars.

But I did not design the LHC calendar. I art directed the project but a good friend of mine, Paul Sinn, actually designed the calendar along with the playing cards. I think the design was a big part of the success of the calendar. It really was beautiful.

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1973: “Big Sister” Judy Horst Conceives the Male Pin-Up Calendar

This week, via email, I interviewed entrepreneur Judy Horst about the controversial male pin-up calendar, “The Ladies Home Companion,” that she conceived in 1973.

Half Moon Bay Memories (HMBM): When did you found Bo-Tree Publications?

Judy Horst: believe it was 1972, and in the Spring. It was founded within weeks of when the idea for the calendar popped into my head. We had sample calendars ready for the May Gift Show in New York. We wanted to find sales reps there.

HMBM: What was your background?

Judy H.: I was a consultant, public relations, marketing communications, employee communications, and advertising—to many of the companies spawned by Fairchild Semiconductor where I had worked previously.

HMBM: How did you conceive of the male Pin-Up calendar?

Judy H.: I was with a good friend, her husband, another couple and my date, and we were laughing and talking about the recent Burt Reynolds centerfold in Cosmopolitan magazine as we walked in a jazz club in San Francisco. It was like a light bulb went off—I had no sooner said, ‘someone should put together a male nude calendar’…than I saw it had the name for it, knew what the photos would look like, knew how to execute it and was certain we could market it. It was a once in a life time kind of experience, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all night long. pinup.jpeg

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Grim News: Tragic Oil Spill: Crab Season NOT Opening: Story by Burt Blumert

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Grim News: Crab Season NOT Opening: Story by Burt Blumert

Walking on this bright, beautiful Sunday morning on Johnson Pier at Princeton was glorious. The heavy rains yesterday scrubbed everything and the world seemed perfect.

An ideal day to inaugurate the opening of the crab season by buying some succulent crabs from the boats that sell to the public.

Not so. No crabs today. It’s grim for the fishermen who earn their living from harvesting crabs, for the restaurants that feature crab on their menus at this time of year and the poor consumer who will be denied their winter treat.

To walk on Johnson Pier at Princeton is very sad. All the fishing boats are sitting idle and their empty traps are quietly nested.

Not many crab-men were even on their boats or on the pier. I did encounter one or two; they were glum-faced.

There was a meeting of fisherman last night and they voted to cancel the opening of crab season.

The commercial fishermen haven’t had a good time of it; the salmon season was disappointing–and now with this devastating oil spill, things are going from bad to worse.

At the meeting, reported by a couple of locals, the fishermen discussed the fact that the crabs could be contaminated from the spill–and people could get sick consuming them. This factor eliminated any debate about whether to open the crab season or not.

I didn’t have time to get all of the facts. These poor fellows weren’t in a mood for chatty conversation– worse yet, they are concerned that this disastrous oil spill could threaten future crab seasons.

Let’s hope that there is better news ahead.

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Norman Mailer RIP

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Norman Mailer died today, the 10th of November, 2007.

I was a great fan of his and got to meet him in Houston in 1992 at the Republican Convention. It was serendipity, my being in Houston and meeting Norman Mailer at a National Review reception.

(I was neither a Republican nor a reader of National Review.)

I was with Burt Blumert and Murray Rothbard– the world class economist, historian, political theoretician and the most important writer on human liberty. Our host had been officially invited to the party and brought us along–Burt and Murray were NOT on the National Review invitation list.

There were several moments I still warmly remember…walking into the cloakroom to hang up a coat, Burt and Murray with me. In walked the political journalist Michael Kinsley, wearing a backpack, followed seconds later by conservative columnist George Will. If you follow politics, you will know that Kinsley and Will are powerful opinion-makers.

They both recognized Murray Rothbard, with Kinsley first saying, “So you’re the one who started it all.â€? He said this because Murray, a prolific writer (Burt and I used to anxiously await faxes to arrive at our home from Murray, usually very late at night…long, funny, common sense pieces of writing on every subject imaginable–but especially focusing on the folly of the human condition.)

Murray’s writings were changing the conventional debate, moving the line in the sand, broadening the discussion–â€?forcingâ€? the opinion makers to talk about things they didn’t want to talk about.

George Will walked into the cloakroom behind Kinsley– instantly recognized Professor Rothbard and began reciting, word-for-word, one of his economic treatises. A work he recalled from his college days at Yale. Amazing!

It was just the five of us in that cloakroom: Our host, me, Burt, Murray, Kinsley and Will.

We left the cloakroom and entered the bustling main party–just a big room with many people sipping cocktails, talking animatedly. Over there we saw Bill Bennett, a potential presidential candidate at the time, working the room, his political entourage buzzing around him.

And then we saw the icon—the great Norman Mailer, a bit shorter than I thought…and I became giddy as a groupie in the presence of a rock star because, as a writer myself he meant more than words to me–one of the greatest American novelists was in the room–standing several feet away from us.

Burt said, “Come, let me introduce you to this idol of yours, June.” He sort of half-dragged me towards the author and suddenly we were standing with Norman Mailer. Beside him and chatting as if he were a regular person. He said he was covering the convention for Vanity Fair magazine. (Afterward, I looked for the story but never saw it.)

Burt said jokingly, “Mr. Mailer, it is well known that you are one of the world’s greatest authorities on the subject of women. Give me some wisdom on this mysterious topic.” (Mailer had six wives.)

Norman Mailer leaned over and in a loud whisper said: “In dealing with women, remember to never tell the whole story.”

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Ladies Home Companion (1)

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(Pictured: Then Half Moon Bay free lance photographer Mark Fraser, August 1973 pin-up, Ladies Home Companion Calendar, photo by Carol (Fulton) Turner.)

The 1960s and 70s were years of change in all the corners and folds of American society as many traditional customs between men and women were questioned or reversed meaning that women wanted what men had. Or thought they did.

For a time, I remember women boldly opening doors for themselves– not allowing a man to do it for them. It sounds trite, even funny today, but that was a very big deal back then.

Traditionally, it was expected behavior for the average male to open all kinds of doors for women, car doors, office doors, allowing the female to walk through first. A gentlemanly, polite practice– but to the newly liberated woman of the 1970s, the opening of doors by a man was symbolic of their dependence, the precise feeling they wanted to shed.

And opening doors for themselves made them feel equal to men as well as independent. It was a small statement but made a big impact.

Suddenly, if a man attempted the conventional by opening a door for a woman, she might cast him a withering look.

In the beginning of this social experiment, there was a lot of talk about women being the same as men, that there were no differences between the sexes (which has since been muted.)

It was in this environment, that Playgirl magazine was founded about 1973, featuring photos of attractive,unclothed men as well as articles of interest to the liberated female. The thought was that women shared the pleasure of seeing nude men as much as men did looking at pin-ups.

About the same time several women from San Francisco founded Bo-Tree publications, publishing the groundbreaking “Ladies Home Companion,” a calendar of attractive, young nude males Some of the men were locals discovered at the Potter Plantation house in Half Moon Bay.

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The project was profitable (they sold 50,000 calendars in 1973) but when you read the interviews, you’ll see the calendar was a success for reasons different than the founders ever imagined. In addition to the calendar, there were other products, featuring nude male models on playing cards and address books.

This week I interviewed, via email, Bo-Tree Production’s original founders Christine Hopf-Lovette and Judy Horst, as well as photographer Carol A. Turner.

I found every aspect of the project fascinating and wanted to know about their backgrounds, how they chose the models, got them to pose, their publishing experience as well as how the work was received.

Watch for the interviews soon.

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Prelude to “The Ladies Home Companion”

Prelude to the “Ladies Home Companionâ€? by June Morrall

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(Photo of Michael Powers, circa 1974, by photographer Dennis Swenson).

In the 1970s, Michael Powers’ Miramar home overlooking the surf was an artistic center of gravity.

Outdoors–that’s where Michael could most often be found–carving designs into massive logs, building a unique and steep stairway down to the beach, hosting community events between an eye-catching A-frame with a concrete statute on top and a more traditional geodesic dome.

Michael climbed the nearby mountains and brought back hefty eucalyptus logs to fashion into a one-of-a-kind curvy staircases. He was (and remains) in superb physical shape, a long beach trot was part of his daily regimen– and one day when an abandoned golden retriever followed me home from the post office, it was Michael who made the dog his pet– a dog that loved the unrestrained beach life as much as his new master.

In the 1970s, there was no one like Michael Powers. Smiling, with arms akimbo, he talked enthusiastically about new projects to other artists and photographers that happened by the high energy “scene.”{ Some of them stayed and helped Michael build the dome and A-frame.)

Michael Powers snapped pictures of the colorful flower- filled fields of Half Moon Bay, his young friends riding horses on the beach and playing in the surf in his front yard. Once a year he and his very gracious brother, Pat, also a photographer, packed up their collection of pictures, jumped into the car and drove to the East Coast to sell the images to the big greeting card companies. The annual trek became a signal for some Coastsiders that the summer was over.

Another high energy “sceneâ€? evolved at Bruce Pine’s “Potter Plantationâ€? in Half Moon Bay– an older home on Potter Street with an authentic windmill (all still standing in the middle of a cluster of million-dollar subdivision homes). Bruce Pine’s sundeck became famous for the beautiful, nude bodies that graced it.

According to one story Bruce Pine loves to tell, in the 1970s, neighbors within range, took out their binoculars to see who was tanning themselves on the deck that day. They might catch a glimpse of Jerry, Mark, Flower and many others–all basking. Bruce, himself, was often not at home at his Potter Plantation house, business taking him to cities all over the country.

Separated by four miles, the artists and photographers traveled back and forth between the deck at the Potter Plantation and Michael Power’s tabernacle.

….more to come…

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The Crimes of Half Moon Bay…..? By John Vonderlin

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Hi June,

“J‘Accuse!,” my friends in Half Moon Bay.

Yes, I accuse your fair city and its residents and visitors of being responsible for the enormous amount of non-buoyant marine debris making the southward “Silent Procession” of which just a small portion is spit out by Neptune’s Vomitorium onto Invisible Beach. Through the carelessness of your industries, your recreational activities, and your improper disposal of no longer wanted items you are turning the ocean into a gigantic trash can. While it was the tracing of the golfballs and their remnants to the Ritz Carlton golf courses south of Half Moon Bay, that established the first point source I was convinced of, there was much earlier evidence of Half Moon Bay’s complicity.

Though the fishing and crabbing industry, both commercial and recreational, contribute a large portion of the debris to my collection, especially of the debris that has the potential of damaging marine life, I’ll leave that for another email. Instead, I’d like to focus on the types of debris that led me to identify Half Moon Bay and possibly its northern neighbor, Pacifica, as the sources of much of the stuff I was gathering.

Kayak shoes and swim goggles were what first piqued my interest and pointed me in the right direction..

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