Blondes vs. Brunettes #10 - You Probably Want to Turn Down the Volume

While blondes and brunettes can compete in different ways, the bell ringer is a physical contest. Maybe a test of strength, maybe a football game, better yet a fight of some sort. A good, clean wrestling match works for me, maybe with some hair pulling allowed.  Clothing is OK, but since we’re on the topic of hair color, a completely nude match pitting blonde hair against dark hair is a special treat and one might say that it doesn’t get any better than that: two ladies on their feet, grappling with each other, hands in each other’s hair and then you glance down below and there’s a blonde bush and dark haired bush struggling against each other. Raw power … physical strength: which girl has more of it, the pretty blonde with the clear blue eyes or the brunette with her olive skin and dark brown eyes?


You don't suppose this was staged
for the photographer, do you?

An entire industry has developed to satisfy the males’ (and some females) desire to watch women battle each other.  And it’s no accident that many of the contests feature blondes fighting brunettes.  The noted feminist and social critic Susan J. Douglas discussed this phenomenon in her book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media where she cites the famous Dynasty battles between Alexis and Krystle. 

Others, writing in scholarly journals, have sounded a similar theme.  In a Chrestomathy article titled “Catfight: A Feminist Analysis”, researcher Rachel Reinke used as an example, “…a highly sexual catfight [that] took center stage during the 2003 NFL Playoffs when a Miller Lite advertisement featuring a catfight aired. The ad opens with two women—notably, as Douglas predicts, a blond and a brunette—arguing over the best reason to drink Miller Lite beer. This already asinine argument then escalates into a full-fledged catfight as the women get up from the table and slap and claw at each other while grunting and moaning suggestively.”

Again, this is scholarly stuff, experts speaking about the subject, and not just some pervert blogging away in his basement.

So there.

Big industry, large audience, a tendency to feature blondes and brunettes battling each other, seems like we're in heaven, no? Yes, actually, we are in heaven but even heaven has its glitches, namely that so much of what we see on video is of questionable legitimacy. We want to see an authentic battle, but we all to often end up with some degree of nonsense. 

Here’s the hierarchy:

Movie & TV Catfight. These are, by definition, always scripted and staged. But often there's nothing more satisfying than a great movie catfight like Total Recall.

Streetfight.  These are, by definition, always real.  Quite popular, they’re found all over the intent and typically feature drunk chicks in a nightclub, or schoolgirls in the playground.  Some are really good, but 9 out of 10 times, fucked up camerawork and/or poor lighting conditions ruin the video.

The strong brunette put the slim blonde
in headlock to win round 1

Real.  This category features two gals catfighting, wrestling or boxing where they are actually trying to defeat their opponent.  Seems like a simple enough concept, but these videos are quite rare because almost all catfights, wrestling, or boxing matches are

Fake.  More than 90% of the stuff out there is fake, phony, staged, and/or scripted.  The interesting thing is some of these events have real parts to them, often the opening few minutes.  But the problem with these products is that they are created by producers who need to fill time.  I imagine the conversation with the girls goes something like this “I’m paying you to wrestle for 15 minutes so even if one of you pins the other you need to keep wrestling each other.”  From there you can see the problem: one girl pins the other three minutes into the match and the loser, knowing that they need to wrestle for another 12 minutes says “OK, you pinned me now it’s my turn to pin you” and we end up with another 12 minutes of two girls playing grab ass with each other instead of fighting for Real.
 

But then she allowed herself to get into a
head scissors a bit too easily.
mmmmm, interesting

 Which brings us to our video.  Is it real, fake, or a combination of both? Judging by Ron Dvorkin's introduction, it appears to be a product of "California Supreme" and probably dates back to the early 70s. Like many of Dvorkin's efforts, it is filmed outdoors on a mat and features a lot of rolling around and pins, typical of the "you pinned me and now it's my turn to pin you" strategy employed by the industry. I don't mean that as a hit on Dvorkin who produced better products than many of his competitors did, but it's simply a matter of business when you have to fill a few minutes of time on a video. This particular match features a tough, strong looking brunette wrestling a slim blonde, and the first round not surprisingly ends with the blonde being pinned. The next round shows the black haired gal having her way with the blonde once again but then the blonde suddenly turns the table, gets the brunette in a head scissors and forces her to submit. Subsequent rounds are tit for tat and just a little too balanced for my tastes given that the brunette looks like she could easily out muscle the blonde.  So is it real or fake?  Was Dvorkin giving them instructions to keep it competitive?  We don't know because the footage is from a silent 8mm tape.  All we get to hear is the extremely annoying classical music playing during the match.

Which is why you may want to hit the mute button while you watch. 

Watch the video

 

 

Blondes vs. Brunettes #9 - Sports Review wrestling #1

Boom.  There it was, nestled in a rack of wrestling magazines, two women fighting each other and the screaming headline: “Apartment House Wrestling Shocker! Champion Dethroned In No Holds Barred Brawl!!”  

Bam. INSTANT HARD ON.  This can’t be, I thought as I flipped open to the story, but there it was, a gorgeous bikini-clad brunette with a headlock on a bikini-clad blonde.  Are you kidding me? What a photo



Salome wraps up the great Cynara

Bing. And all I was looking for that day was some juicy women wrestling advertisements that were normally found in the back pages of your typical wrestling magazine. Instead, I found a whole new world of wrestling called “Apartment House Wrestling” that featured barefoot, bikini-wearing beauties, fighting each other in front of a room full of rich dudes, a delightful fantasy orgainzed by a mysterious fellow “Dave Moll” for the entrtainment of his wealthy pals. 

I’m sure my face was flush as I devoured this story at the newsstand, scanning left and right, hoping nobody I knew came strolling into the place and discovered me.   Nervously, I paid for the mag and escaped the scene with my lode inside my coat, thank the Lord it was winter so I could hide the goods.

Knowing that nobody was home yet, I hustled back to my bedroom and read through the story, thrilled that the black haired Salome defeated the blonde beauty Cynara.

Now, you didn’t have to be a genius to realize that the photos were all staged, this wasn’t a real fight after all.  But it was photographed well and certainly worked for me.  And it didn’t really didn’t bother me that Cynara, the shapely blonde, looked stronger and more athletic than Salome, what the hell she would probably kick Salome’s ass in a real fight, all that mattered to me was that a blonde and a brunette fought in bikinis and the brunette won the fight.  How delicious.

Starting with that 1975 issue, I became a big fan of Sports Review Wrestling over the years and as I got older became bolder in my actions until one day I bought one of SRW’s “Battling Girls” magazines, those being the periodic issues that dealt exclusively with apartment house wrestling matches, and as I was paying for it, the cigar smoking old fart at the cash register waved it around and yelled out “Well, this young man knows what he wants, doesn’t he?” 

The brunette smashes her blonde
opponent with her powerful legs

Thanks a lot asshole, I thought as I walked out with a beet red face.

Dark haired Salome quickly disappeared from the pages of SRW (Dave Moll said she got married), but blonde Cynara, with her marvelously toned body, hung around for a few more years beating up other women and became a real fan favorite.

Dr. Chin's website has captured all of the Apartment House history in its glorious black and white images from the 1970s and 19080s.

Like many of us, he's wondered exactly who Cynara was and whatever did happen to her.  No real answer, but given that she was probably in her 30s at the time (she did look a few years older than the other girls) she must be in her 70s by now, assuming she is still with us.  Since nobody could ever figure out her real name, tracking her whereabouts is next to impossible.  It might be that like Bettie Page, she’s unaware of her popularity and is living normal life.  But like Page, who discovered her newfound popularity in her later years, you might think that Cynara would type “Cynara wrestling” into a Google search box and discover how her popularity has endured over the years.  Ditto for Salome and others. Surely they could get a table at comic-con or some other doofy gathering and pull in big cash signing photos as Page did in her final years.      

Aside from Salome, other brunettes did not enjoy success against the tough blond Cynara.
This poor gal is getting, quite simply, punched out.

Blondes vs. Brunettes #8 - Catfights and Gunfights #2, Audrey Totter, RIP

Gosh, who could have predicted at the time I posted the blog on December 9th, that Ms. Totter would die on December 12th.  Gee, I hope making the world famous blonde vs. brunette blog didn't kill her. 

And I never got a chance to ask her who would have won the real fight between her and Joan Leslie.

Thanks for the entertaining movies, Audrey, and rest in peace.

Blondes vs. Brunettes #7 - Catfights and Gunfights #1

Two of the great resources out there are Ed Stips' Yahoo Group "MovieTVcatfightalert"

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/movietvcatfightalert/info

and "Catfight Collectors" on runboard.com

http://bcatfightcollectors.runboard.com/

 

 

In the past couple of weeks both of them (they have an incestuous relationship that I'm jealous of) have discussed the 1954 western "Johnny Guitar" starring Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge.  At the end of the movie, the two ladies had a nice little gunfight with each other that ended with Ms. McCambridge getting blasted by Joan.  There's no point in discussing any further since they were both brunettes.

But it did get me to thinking about a couple of westerns that did feature blonde vs. brunette gunfights that actually started as catfights before the ladies decided to take it outside.

WATCH: The Women They Almost Lynched - The Catfight

The first of these was the 1953 movie "The Woman They Almost Lynched" starring Audrey Totter as the blonde gunslinger and Joan Leslie as the brunette saloon owner.  As usual, let's just skip the inane plot and get to the good stuff, namely the two women getting into a knock down drag out bar room brawl with the brunette Leslie getting the best of blonde haired Totter.

 

Naturally, Totter decides to seek revenge against her brunette opponent and decides the best way to do it is in an old-fashioned shootout. Totter of course, is sure she will win as she fancies herself as a real tough cookie who can handle a gun.  And she thinks that Leslie is a wimp who is clueless with a gun. Now you might just think that Totter would Think twice about this since the wimp had just given her a first class ass whipping in a fight, but no point in trying to think logically.  Well, you can just see this coming:  Joan Leslie, the nice gal from back east turned out to be as handy with a gun as she was with her fists. In classically silly western style, she wings Totter in the gunfight, shooting the pistol from her hand. Totter who revealed herself as the real wimp, tells Leslie to finish the job which she declines and instead implores Totter to stop acting like a thug and start acting like a lady.

 

 

Watch: The Woman They Almost Lynched - The Gunfight

Yawn.

The best part of the post-fight reaction occurred when one of male onlookers said to Totter, “She fights better than you, she shoots better than you and she even talks better than you", and the other dude says, "Yeah, I bet she can even cook better than you."

Hahahaha!

I thought that was hilarious.

The second movie was the 1954 western, Jesse James Women. In this flick's somewhat odd casting, Don "Red" Barry, an actor well into his 40s, played the role of James who was gunned down while he was in his early 30s.

Blonde Peggie Castle and black haired Betty Brueck played the lead female roles as a saloon keeper and trail boss, respectively. The gals come to blows inside Castle's bar when they both were vying for the attention of James. Like Totter, Castle is another blonde brimming with confidence but this time it's justified as she really knocks the crap out of dark haired Brueck. Like The Woman They Almost Lynched, the loser, in this case the brunette, decides to strap on the guns and have a shootout with the winner which in this case was the blonde castle. It's a nice little showdown but it's ruined by Jesse James in another silly little western maneuver when he wings not one, but both of the women simultaneously with two guns, one in each of his hands.  YaRight.com

Watch: Jesse James Women - The Catfight

After their guns are shot out of their hands, the woman charge each other and can be seen in the background fighting but the scene shifts to another one of James' criminal plots and we never see the result.

 Not that I'm complaining, but both of these movies, along with Johnny Guitar, beg the question: What the hell were they all smoking in 1953-1954?

 

 Watch: Jesse James Women: The Gunfight

 

Blondes vs. Brunettes #6 - Powderpuff #2 Blondes 33, Brunettes 32

That Arrow pointing up?  It didn't mean straight ahead,
it actually meant straight up as in climbing a freakin' mountain!

Both quarterbacks were outstanding, but the blonde was better looking.  In terms of which team to root for, that pretty much sealed the deal for me.

But what actually jumped out at me upon my arrival was the sight of two dark haired girls playing for Team Blonde and my knee jerk, panic reaction, "Oh my gosh, are we running out of blondes?  Maybe all those internet rumors about blond extinction are true! Quick, somebody call Sweden while I call the immigration department!"

Then I noticed a blond wearing a blue shirt and playing for Team Brunette.OK, I know this is liberal-lefty Washington D.C. that prays at the altar of diversity, but come on girls let's get with the program which, by the way, is called Blondes vs. Brunettes.

As they say on TV, it was a tough, hard fought game. And it was.  The lead changed hands several times.  The quarterbacks were really good. They actually threw tight spirals 10-20 yards right to the hands of receivers who were  running perfectly timed patterns.  I was impressed.


Just a wild guess, but I think mother and son were
rooting for Team Blonde

No pass rush, though.  Is that a flag football rule?  Maybe, I can't remember.  The tempo was pretty much snap, everybody goes wide and the QB figures out who to gets the pitch. Occasional running play just to keep the defense honest.  The brunette had the better arm, geez she could really throw the ball, but the blonde could scramble better and rushed for a couple of goal line TDs the last of which
occurred with 20 seconds left on the clock. The crowd thought that the blondes had iced the game with that TD but then Team Blonde managed to boot the ball all of 10 yards on the ensuing kickoff, giving the brunettes perfect field position to win the game with seconds remaining on the clock. The first play placed Team Brunette at the goal line and they desperately tried to push the ball in, but time ran out on the third play from scrimmage and that was, as they say, the ball game.



Nice leg kick by the Blond QB

I thought it was a pretty darn good game but would never pass up a chance to complain, so here goes.

1. Bad location.  In a city that arguably has the best public transportation system in the country, the George Washington University athletic campus is nowhere near a metro station.  As a result, everybody has to drive.

2. There's no place to park.

3. The stadium is located on top of a hill. After walking twenty minutes just to get there, the last thing I needed to do was climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

4. There's no comfortable place to watch the game.  It's actually played on a soccer field which understandably has spectator seating for exactly 38 people. The remaining several hundred had to stand for two and half hours.

5. No beer, no food, no vendors.

So why this venue?  I suspect, and I don't mean this in a mean spirited or cynical way, that the organizers have an inside hook to the GWU administration and are allowed to use the facilities on favorable terms.  Since the post game reception includes copious amounts of booze, I also suspect that most of the local high schools are ruled out.  As well, it's a sweet area. Located just northwest of Georgetown near Foxhall Road, it's in one of the District's ritziest neighborhoods which I suspect is also one of the country's wealthiest.

 



Pretty good reasons to pick that venue.

I didn't get a chance to chat with the players after the game, much less hug the winning quarterback, because it was late and I had to get home.

Officially, I spent Saturday afternoon shopping for new brass knobs for kitchen cabinets. Good thing for me all the local Home Depots were sold out which explains why I came home empty handed three hours later.

 

 

Team Blonde (33) pulls ahead with 21 seconds left in the game

Blondes vs. Brunettes #5 - Powderpuff #1, Saturday is the Big Day

Mark it on your calendars, Blondes vs Brunettes flag football showdown, 1PM at George Washington University, Washington D.C.  GWU's stadium is actually located at their "Mount Vernon Athletic  Complex" located in the District at 2100  Foxhall Road, a few miles away from GWU's main campus.

http://blondesvsbrunettes.org/game-info/

Sexy and exciting, what else would you expect of a blonde vs brunette confrontation, and it's for a good cause.  All proceeds support the Alzheimer's Association.

This is the seventh year of the game in Washington D.C., which is where it all started. I first attended in 2010. Check out the pics. The brunettes won the game with a last minute touchdown. Being brunettes, they were able to recruit a couple of very fast and very athletic black (and black haired) receivers who out played the blonde defensive backs, a slick move that enabled the victory.

Very clever, those brunettes.

The rules, as I understand them, allow any race or ethnicity on either side, of course, as long as their hair is correct.  I suspect the blondes are always trying to recruit some peroxide blonde black gals although I don't know if they have been successful, as the brunettes won last year as well.

If you're not familiar with this event, and I suspect most of you have never heard of it, the game is actually played in over 20 cities throughout this great nation of ours.

Now here's where it gets interesting.  Impressed as I was a few years back as a spectator, and being a Wikipedia fan, I checked to see if there was a Wikipedia article on this event and having discovered that there wasn't, I wrote one.
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondes_vs._brunettes_powderpuff_football

Neat, huh?

Having successfully written that article, I got to thinking, why not have an article about Blondes vs Brunettes?  So I wrote one of those too, but it was turned down by a Wiki administrator as not being suitable, notable, verifiable and not being encyclopedic in nature.

With that rejection, I implemented "Plan B" which was to write a scaled down version of the article and embed it into the existing Wikipedia article titled "Blond" as a new section titled "Blonde vs. Brunette Rivalry."  Ensuring that this new section was properly documented and cited with reliable and verifiable sources, Plan B worked swimmingly for about six months. At that point, the new section became so big it was actually out sizing the rest of the article and according to some of the editors, becoming a bit too salacious. Pornographic is what they said.  Who? Me?

After some heated exchanges on the "talk page" the "Blonde vs Brunette" section was voted off the island when one of the editors decided enough was enough and split the section off to an entirely independent article.

And with that, I had, in a very roundabout way, accomplished Plan A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blonde_versus_brunette_rivalry

Curiously, I discovered that by that point in time I had made enough Wiki edits that I could write and approve my own articles; I didn't need to nominate them for administrator approval. With that power in hand, I pumped out a few more articles relating to the topic.

Enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Gladiatrices:_Blondes_vs._Brunes


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_School_Girl


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_and_the_Amazon_Women

No promises and no guarantees, but with some luck I'll be able to sneak out of the house on Saturday and get to the game.  If so, will be sure to snap a few photos and post them on the blog along with the final score.

Blondes vs. Brunettes #4 - Alexis and Krystle

The 80’s were a busy part of my life, saddled with all of the normal responsibilities that we both endure and enjoy.  But there was little time left for some types of enjoyment and as a result of that, missed what may have been some of the greatest blond vs. brunette battles in history. Of course, I’m talking about Alexis and Krystle on the ABC TV soap opera, Dynasty.  A few years back, one of the morning news shows featured the 25^th anniversary of Dynasty and, as part of the story, interviewed the blond haired Linda Evans who played Krystle (not Krystal) on the show.  Not surprisingly the interview quickly turned to the rolling, rollicking catfights she had with brunette Joan Collins. 

In her book, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, cultural historian and critic, Susan Douglas included a chapter on catfights and noted Dynasty’s fights, in particular. Discussing the rise of catfights in popular culture, Douglas wrote that by the 1970s, catfights

"...had evolved into various forms of especially sloppy faux combat between women, like female mud wrestling or Jell-O wrestling. In its purest form, it features two women, one usually a traditional wife (blond), the other a grasping, craven careerist (brunette), who slug it out on a veranda, in a lily pond, or during a mudslide. Usually they fight over men or children. Sometimes, as in The Turning Point, they just hit each other with their little purses. Other times, as in the incessant catfights in Dynasty, Krystle got to slop a big, gushy glob of cold cream in Alexis’s face, or Alexis got to thrown pond scum down Krystle’s blouse. "

Of course, a blond and a brunette, what else?

Watch: Krystle and Alexis in their first Dynasty fight

Curious note:  In Evans' autobiography, Recipes for Life: My Memories, she claimed that the "blueprint" for her first catfight with Joan Collins was the "outrageous catfight" she had with Stephanie Powers in McCloud (see the October 20th blog entry).

 

 

Blondes vs. Brunettes #3 - Planet Earth

Janet Margolin. In her prime years, some considered her one of Hollywood's most beautiful women. Shame that she died at the too young age of 50 from ovarian cancer.  During her career as an actress, she gave us one legendary battle with a blond.

Co-starring in Planet Earth, Margolin played the role of a scientist in a post-apocalyptic world who was given the mission, and I'll avoid boring you with the details and get right to the important stuff, to penetrate an Amazon society that had enslaved men. To bolster her credibility with the Amazons and also because he was part of the mission, she took along the smoldering male brunette, John Saxon, with her. Much to her surprise, her first encounter as she traveled to the village of the amazons was with the Amazon ruler, played by Diana Muldaur.  Muldaur with her dirty blond hair, bright blue eyes, and fair complexion, presented a good contrast with Margolin who, with her jet black hair, large dark eyes, and olive skin, looked like a classic brunette.

 

Margolin's peaceful ways didn't sit well with the aggressive Muldaur who upon laying her eyes on the dark haired Saxon, challenged Margolin to a fight. On horseback, life in a post apocalyptic world apparently not allowing for cars, Margolin tried to talk her way out of fighting Muldaur, but the blond Amazon, also on horseback, would have none of it. She gave a swift backhand to the dark haired Margolin, knocking her off her horse, and then trotted away with Saxon.

Watch: Harper Smythe asks for directions

Planet Earth was an ABC-TV movie of the week. These 90 minute movies were quite popular in the 1970s and were occasionally launching points for TV series.

Watching the blond Muldaur slug Margolin, I immediately blushed, got aroused and panicked. The whole family was watching. What were they thinking?  It's not like you watch women fight each other on TV every night.  All I could think of was Grindel explaining blond and brunette fights to me a few years earlier. What was going through the mind of mom (dark brunette) and dad (brunette)?  I dared not look as the show cut to a commercial.  But when I did, I noticed that my dad was already snoozing.  The movie was 30 minutes old and had been a clunker thus far - I guess he didn't think it was worth watching.  My mom had her head in a book, and my little brother ... well, who cares ...

After a decent interval, I softly announced to my mother that I has some studying to do and excused myself to the downstairs family den.  Which also had a TV. As I got up, my little bro gave me a bonus.  He asked me to change the channel to something more interesting.  Oh, I was never so glad to do something for my brother.  And away I went. 

Oh gosh, I couldn't study for the life of me. Not only did I immediately turned on the TV, but had, in less than five minutes time, had fallen madly in love with Janet Margolin and knew that she wouldn't let me down. Glancing at the clock, there was less than 60 minutes left in the movie. I paced back and forth, praying for a rematch and hoping that Margolin would emerge victorious over the Amazon who stole her man. But what if she lost?  What if she was beaten up by this tough, strong blond?  Oh, I thought, it didn't matter, as long as she had the courage to fight.

The minutes passed, slowly. The plot droned on and on. Finally, Margolin arrived upon a house, run by a woman of course, another blond, and asked for help.  After some back and forth bickering, it was clear that her requests for help weren't getting any traction with the lady of the house.  So Margolin flat out asked her, "What do I have to do? Fight you?"  So the lady said something like "Yes, because that's how we do things here" and that's when the fight started.  It was quickly interrupted by the lady's two children, but not before Margolin had twisted her opponents arm behind her back and forced her to her knees.

Watch: HS asks for directions

Oh yes, I thought,  That's how you do it!

Once she established that she could fight, the blond, who I think was played by Sally Kemp, advised Margolin that the only way she could get her man back was to fight Muldaur.  But she couldn't do that in her goofy green and yellow pantsuit, so Kemp had Margolin dressed in typical amazon gear: a halter top allowing for a bare midriff, a skirt slit up the middle revealing a bikini bottom, and boots.  The fight, the housemistress said, would be the next day, i.e., right after a commercial break.  Well, of course. 

After the longest two minutes of commercials in history, and with my stuff as hard as a rock, the day finally came.  On horseback, Kemp and Margolin came trotting in to the male slave auction where Muldaur was placing Saxon up for the highest bid.  But Margolin announced that she was the real owner and was prepared to fight for her property.

Now the truth is, it was a dumb, pathetic fight but the sight of these two very attractive gals battling each other in their skimpy outfits floored me.  It stayed in my mind for years and being that this pre-dated VHS tapes, not to mention computers and the internet, I spent countless hours searching TV listings for reruns.

And the winner?  Margolin. 

Watch: The Big Fight!!

Coming from a family of dark brunettes, I took such great pleasure in watching her beat the blonde. 

But as the years rolled by, I found that I was not always rooting for the brunette.

Blondes vs. Brunettes #2 - How did this thing start?

Since he passed away many years ago, and because I don't think it's possible to libel a dead guy (and besides, the truth is never libelous), my earliest memory on this topic traces back to one of my babysitters, Ronnie Grindel.  Ronnie was the teenage son of a man and woman who were friends of my parents.  I thought he was a pretty cool guy but when you're 8 or 9, all 17 year olds are cool.

How cool was he?  He only babysat me three times.  The first time, my folks were out with his folks, and he was pretty normal which was amazing because he had a reputation as a trouble maker.  My mom was a bit nervous about letting him sit me but my dad said it was OK.  All I can recall is that he asked me a lot of questions, kind of probed me to see if I was a rat or a player, so to speak, which I thought was kinda funny. He swore me to secrecy saying that I couldn't reveal the contents of our conversation with anybody. Funny thing is that I don't remember what the conversations were about, sex probably, but it all went over my head. 

The third and last time he sat me, about three months later we had a good time.  After swearing me to secrecy again, and I've kept that promise until now (decades later), he broke out the porn magazines.  He also opened a pouch and pulled out a what I think was vodka and proceeded to get hammered.

Needless to say, that was then end of Ronnie the babysitter.

This is relevant, in a long roundabout way, because of the second babysitting experience I had with Ronnie. As usual, he swore me to secrecy and then he talked and talked.  At some point the conversation veered to girls.  Blondes and brunettes. Seems he was dating a girl with an Italian heritage and naturally she was a brunette with big dark brown eyes. The previous weekend her and another girl, a blonde, had argued at a party and went out to the backyard of this house and got into a fight. Being that it was the summer, Ronnie explained to me that they were both wearing shorts and fought in their bare feet. The blonde beat up his brunette girlfriend pretty bad. He wasn't broken up by it and he actually enjoyed watching this blonde, who it turned out he really liked, beat up his girlfriend, who, it turned out, he didn't really like. Ronnie, by the way, had a blonde crew cut, and was, at least in his opinion, really popular with girls.  And, he really got turned on by watching them fight, especially blondes and brunettes, he explained to me.  Oh yes, he said, and the blonde girls always won because they were stronger and more athletic than the brunettes which meant they were better fighters.  Better yet, they were prettier, which is why the brunettes hated them and always picked fights with them.  Just you wait, he told me, you'll see and when you do always bet on the girl with blonde hair.

I was really fascinated by this.

Another thing, he explained to me was that girls like to take their shoes off when they fought. That's what his (ex) girlfriend and the blonde did ... they took their shoes off and fought barefoot on the grass. They get a better grip on the ground you know, he explained to me.  Even in the winter they'll take off their shoes and fight in stocking feet. Just wait, he said, you'll see as you get older.  You'll see how the brunettes are jealous of blondes and sometimes start fight with them only to get beat up. And they'll kick their shoes off. This went on for a while. I asked him if it applied to guys as well, and he said it did a little bit, but guys weren't as interested in another guys hair and didn't get jealous of each other like girls did. 

I couldn't get enough of it and wouldn't let the conversation go. 

He started thinking I was weird. 

Several months later, I was browsing the comic book section at the local Kresge's (later to become K Mart) and came upon the now famous Anthro #6 that feature a blonde and brunette cave girl fighting over Anthro.  I didn't dare buy the magazine with the change I had in my pocket, fearing what me mother might say.  Later, when I returned by myself , it was gone and I was heartbroken.

Over time, I forgot the name of the comic, but that image stayed with me forever. 

Only thru the magic of the internet was I able to track it down decades later, and here it is for you to see. 

Maybe a year or two later there was a show on TV named "McCloud" starring Dennis Weaver. Lo and behold, one of the episodes co-starred blonde haired Linda Evans and brunette Stephanie Powers, both of them vying for Weaver's affection.  About half way through the episode they got into a rousing, not to mention arousing catfight.  Watching it on the couch with my father, I was speechless. And I was thrilled.  After the blonde Evans finished beating up Powers, I was tempted to say, "Ronnie was right!" but wisely kept my mouth shut.

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Blondes vs. Brunettes #1 - An Introduction

What is this blog about?

Blondes vs. Brunettes, of course, but not necessarily the 1984 ABC TV special starring Morgan Fairchild and the battling brunette from Dynasty, Miss Joan Collins.   But that's part of what this blog is about. 

The whole rivalry between blondes and brunettes - that's what this blog is about.  It's been going on, so to speak, for over a thousand years. I'm fascinated by it. Maybe you are, too.

The rivalry takes a number of forms, not the least of which is physical.