Spoony McDuff was living a no-good dirty-dog life. His life had not always been this way, of course. You could kind of tell that about him.
He was born in Maryland, into a well-heeled family of Scottish origin. Two years before his birth, his family had founded a cult wherein everyone lived as in Ancient Roman times, worshipping the same gods, praying at household shrines, celebrating vernal equinoces, etc. Spoony’s father and mother had founded this cult out of a compromise between their desire to convert to Hinduism and their racism. They were the only members of this cult. You could kind of tell that about them.
Spoony had accordingly grown up speaking Latin. Real Latin — not Pig, mind you. But he did enjoy, as a game with his brothers and sister, to speak Pig Latin Latin. When he was finally enrolled in public school at the age of 8, he spoke English with a Latin accent. Now, his parents had taught him Latin with an Baltimorese accent, so it all mixed together in his mouth and came out sounding like — well, how would you describe it? Like ass, kind of.
He made friends easily, though, and enjoyed his schooling. In his senior yearbook (Class of 1983!!), he was voted “spooniest.” His classmates really respected his sense of individuality, and they really coveted invitations to his infamous “Steamy Sahara Poker Nights” that he held in his parents’ basement while they were parading around in togas upstairs. Wild, wild nights in that basement! And no cheating allowed. Spoony usually won at those poker nights, but no one minded losing money because Spoony really went out of his way to throw a Steamy Sahara party and to be sure that kind of hosting did NOT come cheap. And it was nice to see Spoony win something, you know?
But as the saying goes, “lucky in cards, unlucky in love.” After two broken marriages, one to a Philadelphia socialite and one to a hippy from Dundalk, Spoony had up and branched out on his own and opened a hotel in Baltimore, in the Irvington section. When he bought it, it was named “Irvington Moto-Lodge.” But under his ownership, it blossomed into “The Carroussel Inn.” Spoony thought that the Carroussel was a nice euphemism for the revolving door business he got from the whores. One thing that life had taught Spoony: never turn down business.
His hotel had fallen on some hard times of late, what with the prostitutes moving progressively downtown. So he had taken the decision to diversify into the flea-market business. So far he himself was the only merchant able to see the genius of this opportunity. But believe me, he had more than enough stuff to fill the hotel’s exhibition hall all on his own. People had left all sorts of junk in the rooms over the years, and some of it was damn near valuable. So impressed was Spoony with the artistic merit of some of the merchandise that he had nearly baptized the flea market “Spoony’s Ye Olde Antique Mart” but then he decided he didn’t want to push it. Then again, he could probably charge more with a name like that. Naw, better leave it as “Spoony’s Pack-It-Up.”
You probably can tell that Spoony by now had become extremely fluent in American English. He barely even spoke Latin anymore. Spoony had also long since discarded the Ancient Roman religion he was brought up in. Unsustainable. But it had really marked his sensibility, as you can imagine. For example, he didn’t make offerings to Janus when starting a new business venture, but he did feel the need to do something propitious to mark the occasion and ensure prosperity in his newly revamped hotel slash flea market. For the grand opening of the “Spoony’s Pack-It-Up,” he got the east-facing wall of his hotel painted over with the words “Go for it, Spoony McDuff!” Nice big white letters splashed across the width of the wall up near the top; closest part of the wall to the clouds. “Go for it, Spoony McDuff!”
Let me just tell you. Everyone knew that he had commissioned that mural himself, but it was still the most inspiring thing to read in the morning on your way into downtown Baltimore. Oh, Spoony McDuff. You better pay me back that money you owe me, though. I know where you live.
dear li’l pony, i like spoony’s adventures already! are we going to find out why is life is so crummy at the moment??? you say nothing really to explain that!!!
i also had a friend in high school who won spooniest! he wasn’t called mcduff, but sometimes people change their names… could you put us in touch, li’l pony?
what street is spoony’s establishment on?
Dear Sarah,
This Spoony’s last name was definitely McDuff. Good luck on your quest, though!
Dear Regina,
Yes!
Dear Babette,
You of all people should know!
Dear Mr. Pony,
I teach American literature (among other things!) at the St. Joseph and Mary University of Southwestern Kansas for the Criminally Insane. As you can imagine my job is incredibly challenging! I just read your piece on Spoony Mcduff and am most impressed. I would like to ask you if it would be at all possible to use it in my classes in the Spring semester. I think the story would be most appropriate for our student population. Please email me at jjfauntleroy@sjamuoskfci.edu. Thank you!
Dr. John-Jack Fauntleroy
Hay Man. You really should look into this ‘Spoony’ thing. I mean really.I don’t know what to tell you but there is something to it-maybe.
The story of Spoonies as a sort of cult has been told to me by many criminals. Mostly older guys from New York. They all sort of talk a lot of shit and I am convinced that most of their ideas develop around things they can’t explain.Myth and all that. In a modern sense, this is sort of how the mafia developed as we see it.All that kissing on the hand and all that really went on, but only after the Godfather films. The F.B.I. started to notice the hand kissing and ritual now part of the mafia tradition. Of course, most of that was taken from the pope and those rituals and never really appeared anywhere in Sicilian organized crime until the Godfather.
In the same way, many very weird and divergent groups connect to the ‘Spoonies’ story. One is that is is a secret society cult thing for women connected to Hollywood. There are secret parties held in the Hollywood and Melrose area for women that have some pretty strange aspects to them. There is a code to get in. Once you get in, there are different levels. Some women can only stay in the beginning area. Others get to go to another. In all of the levels there are both men and women, but the men cannot approach the women and there are only a couple walking around. For the most part, the higher you get in levels the more obscene everything becomes and in the end it all seems like your typical Hollywood freak show with people on stage and private booths and all that.The only part of it that is not typical is that its mostly women, no drugs or booze, not really a leather thing and all the guys are either in stage or sort of at the bid of these women.A lot of the women there are college women that are just there. It is hard to say what the drive is.Really, I think it is just a chance to have a freaky party in Hollywood and charge people a bunch of money by creating different ‘levels’ and only having sex shows in the higher ones. One of the main drives may not only to have some fun in a town were its hard to do so and all the guys are down your neck the minute you step into a club, but I think there a financial thing goin on. it must be like a pyramid scheme or something. This part I do not know about.But, of the many Hollywood parties were you can put those little masks on and walk around in some loft and have anonymous sex, Spoonies parties are the best because its mostly women, the shows on stage and in the booths are themed centered around men rather then women but its not all stripper and everything.A lot of the guys really try to connect and they seem to be all yours if you want them.Thank god for modern medicine because I think one of the requirements for the guys there is to be ‘blessed.’ They just can’t all be real.lol That is what I can tell you for sure. I have been to a couple and they are pretty cool. I think it is really a lot of hype and the best I can come up with is that this is a place for women that just want to relax and act like a kid in a candy store.
What they told me, or the best that I can gather, is that Spoonies started for women involved in the temperance movement in the hills of the San Fernando valley.They came to the area and set up camp, literally, from many different backgrounds. most escaping men.They blamed booze on the problems in their life and society. Yet, they found out that they could do without the booze, but not the Sex. Some had sex with each other. Others invited men in at night. You can see were this going and, yes, soon it became a luritave side busyness.Day meetings and meditation and at night, something different.At some point, what was going on in the day was intergrated with what was going on at night.Many of these women were probably getting off booze and or drugs themselves and all those hormones were kicking in. I think it was only a matter of time before men became some part of the picture for some of the women. This is assuming a lot, but either for cash or ‘other,’ SOME women of the 1800s may have needed either or both. The question then became, what to do with they guy thing and the money thing? If you let them be a part of your life, then its the same problems all over. So, Spoonies camps became sex camps. As far as everyone told me, men of means were picked and let in.But through investments and good banking, after a short while, none of the men were needed any more. Spoonies women started letting in only men they liked.Then they got involved in Hollywood in some way and this is were the place is today-a secret sex club in Melrose.There still seemed to be a ‘lifestyle’ aspect to some of it in that I heard that there is a sort of housing net or something were women can stay for free in ‘Spoonies Houses,’ but for the most part, it seems to be a pyramid gig were you get the people below you to pay for membership and you get a cut.I think the term Spoonies is really from Jane Eyre and just a common tern rather then a reference to a secret society.Laysander Spooner may be another theme in that the story told to me had hints of both capitolism as well as socialism in that there existence together, as in Laysanders case, can not be rationalized beyond a separate use for each other and ending in a utopian type of Anarchism. it is interesting that is you put together Eyres sense of the erotic connecting to the forbidden and Spooners sense of economic dichotomy existing together, you may end up with the Spoonies in the California.Maybe it just meant ‘gushy’ or a sort of overly sentimental person.lol
On the other side, their is another story. This one is about a guy named Anthonie Espoonazera, called ‘Spoonie’ for short. Sicily, 1900s. Got kicked out for stealing and beating up the town idiot.Came to N.Y. Got involved with Mafia stuff.Maybe had something to do with Jazz. Was meeting with the local crime guys and a police man named Ahron came in and wondered why the head of the most powerful Jewish gang was meeting with the head of an Irish gang and a local black killer from Harlem in Spoonies music store.Spoonie replied that they were rehersing. Ahron said he wanted to hear them. Spoonie took up a violin and started playing Danny Boy, the Irish guy started singing it, the guy from Harlem tapped out a rythem on the drums and the Jewish guy picked up the claranett and started to get some use out of those lessons when he was Twelve.That lasted about twenty seconds and then they all went off doing their own thing. Spoonie instructed them to do it seperately, one at a time, then brought them all together.This did not work and Ahron came back later to find tons of coffie they were shipping out without paying any taxes on.Got busted and fled to California.Was chased by that police guy named Ahron.Hid out for years. No one knew how he did it. Stayed low. Made tons of cash. Some say by offering protection to brothels.Tried to get into Hollywood but messed up. Was banned beyond the ‘mountain’ and ended up in Burbank. Funded a lot of projects in that area. Made a killing on the ‘Carson’ thing. Tried to will funding for his son to start a resterant of sorts in Sunland.That then got busted by the feds. This story was told to me by three different old guys who said they were in the mafia.They sort of use it as a way to discount the ‘Dragna’ story of how the Sicilian mafia was run out of Hollywood and the ‘Hearst’ thing and offer it as an explanation of how it all went down, but that in a different way, the mafia in Hollywood is still alive, just that it went underground and may come back some day………
In both cases there seems to really be no facts. There are no records of women called ‘Spoonies’ in the Valley and there are no records of anyone being arrested or doing anything in L.A. named ‘Spoonie.’ Yet,these guys told me that they did all that hand kissing, burning of the thing in your palm, calling the gig the Mafia or Cosa Nostra and all that and were doing time for it, and swore that there was a Spoonie!Some said that he dealt heroine and that’s why they called him ‘Spoonie.’Anyway, the stories have a merging point and that is California, Prostitution and secrecy.Who knows…….
Hay Man. You really should look into this ‘Spoony’ or ‘Spoonie’ thing. I mean really.I don’t know what to tell you but there is something to it-maybe.
The story of Spoonies as a sort of cult has been told to me by many criminals. Mostly older guys from New York. They all sort of talk a lot of shit and I am convinced that most of their ideas develop around things they can’t explain.Myth and all that. In a modern sense, this is sort of how the mafia developed as we see it.All that kissing on the hand and all that really went on, but only after the Godfather films. The F.B.I. started to notice the hand kissing and ritual now part of the mafia tradition. Of course, most of that was taken from the pope and those rituals and never really appeared anywhere in Sicilian organized crime until the Godfather.
In the same way, many very weird and divergent groups connect to the ‘Spoonies’ story. One is that is is a secret society cult thing for women connected to Hollywood. There are secret parties held in the Hollywood and Melrose area for women that have some pretty strange aspects to them. There is a code to get in. Once you get in, there are different levels. Some women can only stay in the beginning area. Others get to go to another. In all of the levels there are both men and women, but the men cannot approach the women and there are only a couple walking around. For the most part, the higher you get in levels the more obscene everything becomes and in the end it all seems like your typical Hollywood freak show with people on stage and private booths and all that.The only part of it that is not typical is that its mostly women, no drugs or booze, not really a leather thing and all the guys are either in stage or sort of at the bid of these women.A lot of the women there are college women that are just there. It is hard to say what the drive is.Really, I think it is just a chance to have a freaky party in Hollywood and charge people a bunch of money by creating different ‘levels’ and only having sex shows in the higher ones. One of the main drives may not only to have some fun in a town were its hard to do so and all the guys are down your neck the minute you step into a club, but I think there a financial thing goin on. it must be like a pyramid scheme or something. This part I do not know about.But, of the many Hollywood parties were you can put those little masks on and walk around in some loft and have anonymous sex, Spoonies parties are the best because its mostly women, the shows on stage and in the booths are themed centered around men rather then women but its not all stripper and everything.A lot of the guys really try to connect and they seem to be all yours if you want them.Thank god for modern medicine because I think one of the requirements for the guys there is to be ‘blessed.’ They just can’t all be real.lol That is what I can tell you for sure. I have been to a couple and they are pretty cool. I think it is really a lot of hype and the best I can come up with is that this is a place for women that just want to relax and act like a kid in a candy store.
What they told me, or the best that I can gather, is that Spoonies started for women involved in the temperance movement in the hills of the San Fernando valley.They came to the area and set up camp, literally, from many different backgrounds. most escaping men.They blamed booze on the problems in their life and society. Yet, they found out that they could do without the booze, but not the Sex. Some had sex with each other. Others invited men in at night. You can see were this going and, yes, soon it became a luritave side busyness.Day meetings and meditation and at night, something different.At some point, what was going on in the day was intergrated with what was going on at night.Many of these women were probably getting off booze and or drugs themselves and all those hormones were kicking in. I think it was only a matter of time before men became some part of the picture for some of the women. This is assuming a lot, but either for cash or ‘other,’ SOME women of the 1800s may have needed either or both. The question then became, what to do with they guy thing and the money thing? If you let them be a part of your life, then its the same problems all over. So, Spoonies camps became sex camps. As far as everyone told me, men of means were picked and let in.But through investments and good banking, after a short while, none of the men were needed any more. Spoonies women started letting in only men they liked.Then they got involved in Hollywood in some way and this is were the place is today-a secret sex club in Melrose.There still seemed to be a ‘lifestyle’ aspect to some of it in that I heard that there is a sort of housing net or something were women can stay for free in ‘Spoonies Houses,’ but for the most part, it seems to be a pyramid gig were you get the people below you to pay for membership and you get a cut.I think the term Spoonies is really from Jane Eyre and just a common tern rather then a reference to a secret society.Laysander Spooner may be another theme in that the story told to me had hints of both capitolism as well as socialism in that there existence together, as in Laysanders case, can not be rationalized beyond a separate use for each other and ending in a utopian type of Anarchism. it is interesting that is you put together Eyres sense of the erotic connecting to the forbidden and Spooners sense of economic dichotomy existing together, you may end up with the Spoonies in the California.Maybe it just meant ‘gushy’ or a sort of overly sentimental person.lol
On the other side, their is another story. This one is about a guy named Anthonie Espoonazera, called ‘Spoonie’ for short. Sicily, 1900s. Got kicked out for stealing and beating up the town idiot.Came to N.Y. Got involved with Mafia stuff.Maybe had something to do with Jazz. Was meeting with the local crime guys and a police man named Ahron came in and wondered why the head of the most powerful Jewish gang was meeting with the head of an Irish gang and a local black killer from Harlem in Spoonies music store.Spoonie replied that they were rehersing. Ahron said he wanted to hear them. Spoonie took up a violin and started playing Danny Boy, the Irish guy started singing it, the guy from Harlem tapped out a rythem on the drums and the Jewish guy picked up the claranett and started to get some use out of those lessons when he was Twelve.That lasted about twenty seconds and then they all went off doing their own thing. Spoonie instructed them to do it seperately, one at a time, then brought them all together.This did not work and Ahron came back later to find tons of coffie they were shipping out without paying any taxes on.Got busted and fled to California.Was chased by that police guy named Ahron.Hid out for years. No one knew how he did it. Stayed low. Made tons of cash. Some say by offering protection to brothels.Tried to get into Hollywood but messed up. Was banned beyond the ‘mountain’ and ended up in Burbank. Funded a lot of projects in that area. Made a killing on the ‘Carson’ thing. Tried to will funding for his son to start a resterant of sorts in Sunland.That then got busted by the feds. This story was told to me by three different old guys who said they were in the mafia.They sort of use it as a way to discount the ‘Dragna’ story of how the Sicilian mafia was run out of Hollywood and the ‘Hearst’ thing and offer it as an explanation of how it all went down, but that in a different way, the mafia in Hollywood is still alive, just that it went underground and may come back some day………
In both cases there seems to really be no facts. There are no records of women called ‘Spoonies’ in the Valley and there are no records of anyone being arrested or doing anything in L.A. named ‘Spoonie.’ Yet,these guys told me that they did all that hand kissing, burning of the thing in your palm, calling the gig the Mafia or Cosa Nostra and all that and were doing time for it, and swore that there was a Spoonie!Some said that he dealt heroine and that’s why they called him ‘Spoonie.’Anyway, the stories have a merging point and that is California, Prostitution and secrecy.Who knows…….
I forgot to mention: any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental! (Right, Babette?)