WHAT WAS A PLASTER CASTER?

by Ian Whitcomb

Ian Whitcomb is a highly respected performer, composer, and music historian. You can find all of his CD's, DVD's, Books, and Songbooks by clicking here.

 
You can find Ian's main website at ianwhitcomb.com

       During the Swinging Sixties, which actually began in 1965 with the conquest of the American pop charts by the British Invaders spearheaded by the lascivious Mick Jagger, there creepingly appeared in teen fan magazines photos of male rock stars in extremely tight trousers, so tight you could distinguish the amount of small change in their pockets. Freed from the restrictions of the buttoned-up 1950s, it was a Coming Out party for the hitherto despised and concealed John Thomas.

       Attracted to such sights, especially when enhanced by bunched-up haberdashery stuck down the trouser front, some Chicago girls from within the larger consortium of “groupies” (intense followers of rock groups), turned their avocation into an art form. Led by Cynthia, who as a schoolgirl had been instructed by her teacher to fashion a plaster cast of an object that could retain its shape and returned with one made from the engorged member of a prominent teen idol, the girls christened themselves “The United Plaster Casters Of Chicago”.

       For their field work (backstage, in hotel rooms, or even at airports) they carried calling cards promising “ Lifelike Models Of Hampton Wicks” and a suitcased kit consisting of wax, clay, some oatmeal perhaps, and aluminium foil, together with an “algenator”, a receptacle for “dick dipping”. Cynthia, the chief modeler, was assisted by “platers” whose job it was to titillate the chosen member into a state of readiness for the procedure.

       This procedure could be dodgy, for an algenator can be cold and the wrong mixture result in a crumbly mess of ill-starred pastry. Cynthia’s detailed notebooks reveal failures such as the attempt to capture Eric Burdon (of The Animals) in an aeroplane lavatory during take-off, and Noel Redding (of The Jimi Hendrix Experience). The latter was later presented, at his Irish estate, with his failed cast — a pathetic curling white dog’s mess of an artwork — shortly before his untimely death. He seemed genuinely pleased.

       Redding’s bandleader, Mr. Hendrix, is today recognized as Cynthia’s greatest success: his cast, which now sits on a plinth in her gallery and is brandished aloft like a holy relic at Caster gatherings across America, is Olympian in tallness and thickness. Some critics believe it his real legacy, others regret the lack of colour — for in life Mr. Hendrix’s dong resembled a massive red Yule log richly entwined in blue ivy.

       In their heyday, the plaster casters were castigated by feminists for being “in service” to the “masculine principle”. But today they are championed by as high a social commentator as Camille Paglia who considers Cynthia and her platers as an example of women taking control: “A major star being manipulated as if he were in hospital being attended by nurses!”

       As one of the British Invaders of 1965 (with my orgasmic breathing hit, “You Turn Me On”) I had always regretted that I had not been approached by the Casters. At 63 and with the Swinging Years long gone, I was thus surprised and thrilled to learn that these brave artists were still at work and that they needed me.

       In an email exchange Cynthia said she been blown away by the knowledge that I was still around when so many of her stars were in their graves. You were the one I always wanted to cast but could never reach, you were the cutie who’d sent a million hearts fluttering, you must agree to a modeling session and thus become one of my immortal babies.

       Surely I’m over the hill, I protested. No, no, she said, a Hampton never ages! But what about the chill factor, I replied, and the crumble problem? No, no, she said, I have heated gloves and a new paste formula. I must admit my Hampton had started pricking. I hadn’t felt this lively since the heady 1960s.

       “It’s never too late”, she ended our correspondence with. “Oh, yes it is!” added my wife. And there my case rests.

Ian Whitcomb is a highly respected performer, composer, and music historian. You can find all of his CD's, DVD's, Books, and Songbooks by clicking here.

 
You can find Ian's main website at ianwhitcomb.com