With Phone Sex the film, director Steve Balderson asked an impressive mix of subjects “What is sexy?” and then simply told them to leave their answers on his phone message machine. Yes, phone machine– this was before voicemail was the norm and way before texting kids. The responses, from the likes of comic genius Margaret Cho, punk legend Jayne County and the Princess of Hollywood herself, Pleasant Gehman, were varied, vampy and often hilarious. We all know “sexy” is subjective, and that one man/woman/non-binary person’s trash is another’s absolute turn-on treasure, but this project revealed it in a new and highly entertaining way. Balderson illustrated everyone’s words with stock footage and visuals in the doc, which we called “a tour de force of the film freakiness” in this publication back when it came out.

Now, the responses are documented in a new hardcover book (which appears to have an edit of our own quote for the LA Weekly on its cover… cool!)  Wild, wondrous and unexpected thoughts on what gets us hot are contributed by an array of personalities in the tome, including the above and more: Penn Jillette, Tura Satana, Edie McClurg, Jane Wiedlin, Iris Berry, Josie Cotton, Jackie Beat, Lloyd Kaufman, Shawna Kenney, Kristian Hoffman, Abby Travis, Ginger Coyote, Allee Willis (RIP) and many, many more.

A lot of these luminaries –Gehman, Berry and Cotton, announced so far– will be on hand this Sunday for a book reading & signing with the author. The event (held in the back of Stories Books & Cafe, outdoors with vaxx and masks required) promises a sexy and safe good time for all. 1716 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park; Sun. Jan. 9, 7 p.m,; free. https://storiesla.com/events

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.