20 thoughts on “In this episode of Magnum J.D.: Slabbed finds Magnum's long lost brother!”

  2. Daytona, New York, Sock. They have a world famous go-cart track there. The inconsistency is reconcilable.

  3. More like Kenner.

    Chateau Magdeleine Drive, West Loyola Ave., only the finest chic-est locales, you know…

    The Magic Fingers Heir, all things were possible….

    **********************

    7.22.90 Miami Herald:

    “”””Magic Fingers,” the vibrating gizmo that has made nights in a roadside motel a joyride for decades, is coming to your home.

    General Stamping and Manufacturing Co. of Hialeah, the company that took the doughnut-shaped machine from a curiosity to a classic 1960s novelty, has come out with a home unit.

    “There’s always a sexual connotation,” said Cherlynn Wetzel, a 15-year employee with the company, located at 3285 E. 10th Ave. “But most people enjoy it because it’s relaxing.”

    Getting Magic Fingers at home will cost $54.95.

    Magic Fingers was invented by **********John Houghtaling , who brought it from New York to Hialeah in the *******late 1960s. During the next decade, it spread from ******cheap hotels to high-class resorts, from San Francisco to Atlantic City.

    For 25 cents, burned-out businessmen and tired vacationers would enjoy 15 minutes of Coney Island. A rotating electric motor is attached to the box spring to create the murmur of motion.

    In the mid-’70s, the gadget’s popularity waned. Burglars and vandals would break into the coin-box, which promised “tingling relaxation and ease,” to steal the change.

    “They’d smash the nightstand, so the hotels took them out,” said Friedrich Sierling, the president of the company.

    Nowadays, it’s difficult to find Magic Fingers in a modern hotel.

    “Maybe 20 years ago, I stayed in a motel that had one of those types of things,” said Paul Storke, general manager of Travelodge Hotel in Miami Springs. “I think I ended up unplugging the thing so I could go to sleep.”

    His hotel on Northwest 36th Street doesn’t have any of the units.

    “Any hotel that does business with families, you’re not going to find such a thing,” he said. “It would be perceived in a negative way — not that it necessarily is.”

    Throughout the years, the company has received letters from insomniacs, the ill and the elderly who claim the gadget’s motion helps them sleep, Sierling said.

    Years ago, when his 3-year-old daughter couldn’t sleep, Sierling brought one home. “I took the vibrator and put it under her crib,” he said. “She fell asleep.”

    Wetzel pulled out a copy of an invoice from actress Adrienne Barbot, who played a daughter in the television show “Maude.” And Dick Clark’s wife, she said, has ordered several as Christmas presents.

    That convinced them to market Magic Fingers to the public.

    “It’s got a lot of potential,” Wetzel said. “We don’t have advertising, we didn’t push.”

    The home unit, which hooks up to a digital clock that programs the box for up to 59 minutes of vibration, is hung inside the box spring.

    They are made on the second floor of the East Hialeah Factory, where four women sit at a long table putting the motors together then packing them into box.

    On the first floor, General Stamping and Manufacturing conducts its primary business: producing door hinges and towel bar brackets from tapelike strips of metal. “””

    ****************

    5.1.02 Palm Beach Post:

    “””When John Houghtaling was giving dinner parties 50 years ago in order to sell stainless steel pots and pans, he never saw himself as quitting his day job.

    But things changed in 1958.

    Acting on a suggestion from a bed maker, Houghtaling spent some time in the basement of his New Jersey house fiddling with a motor he found in a junkyard. When he’d finished, he had an aluminum cup-sized gadget that would snap onto the box springs of a mattress, transforming it from a lumpy pad into a machine that would “lull people to sleep,” he said.

    Enter “Magic Fingers.”

    “It was one of the very first guest-room amenities,” said Ed Watkins, editor of Cleveland-based Lodging Hospitality magazine. “It was a part of the culture of the day. Now kids under 30 wouldn’t know it.”

    Magic Fingers, which was wired to a coin machine and would rattle and shake beds for 15 minutes, was an offbeat cultural touchstone for a generation of American travelers.

    At its peak, Magic Fingers attachments could be found in about 250,000 hotel beds, from mom-and-pop operations to big chains such as Holiday Inn and Motel 6.

    Houghtaling, who hails from Franklin Lakes, N.J., founded Magic Fingers Inc. in 1960 to sell his invention to motels and hotels nationwide. In its best years, the Franklin Lakes-based company had a Patchogue, N.Y., manufacturing plant, employed more than 135 people and posted sales of $1.2 million a year, Houghtaling said. …. “”””

    ***********************
    Weird fact: the once very hot Adrienne Barbot lived in or around Metairie for a bit. She also filmed Swamp Thing down here if I remember the name of the movie correctly.

    ********************

    That might have been grandpa…. not sure, but c’mon they gotta be related.

  5. She also played Billy in Creepshow, which was awesome.

    Tele, where do you find this chit? It’s half-past awesome.

  6. Sock, I forgot about that one, that’s right. I rememeber that movie, good campy fun stuff.

    ***********************

    Now hear this, the Gauthier firm is finished with class-actions!

    9.26.10 BR Advocate:

    “”””Law firm to hold Jindal fundraiser

    A major New Orleans-area law firm with ties to former Gov. Edwin Edwards is holding a fundraiser Wednesday for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s reelection campaign.

    Gauthier Williams Houghtaling was founded by the late Wendell Gauthier, who was an attorney in a class action lawsuit that resulted in a $246 billion settlement with tobacco companies.

    Gauthier’s father managed one of Edwards’ early campaigns. Gauthier died in 2001.

    Managing partner John W. Houghtaling II said the firm *****doesn’t handle class action lawsuits anymore and now does more businesses-suing-businesses litigation. The event will take place in his home. “””””

    http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/elections/103806039.html?index=27&c=y

    Wow, way to go John; do your clients know this, do the courts, and wouldn’t Wendell be proud knowing you have dumped the firm’s longstanding bread & butter?

    Or was that a fabrication?

  7. I believe late one evening the screams of “Oh Magic Fingers” was heard up and down St. Charles Ave. Laughter burst out when a man yelled—“That wasn’t my finger Stormy. You can go now I’m finished”… Thus the family legend was continued…

  8. Folks the ABA Journal has been kind to these pages in the past linking a few of our posts. We’re gratified to return the favor as we will soon pass the century mark on clicks to their site from the link above.

    sop

  9. You guys really have nothing better to do?
    Seriously? John is a person I’ve known for ten years. I have watched you write things that are absolutely bullshit on this blog. I’m tired of losers without a life, a heart, and a job getting off on the misfortunes of someone they WISH they could be.

    ALL of you are Jealous you can’t be this guy. He’s got the chicks, the cars, the looks, and the brains. His own baby brother is Jealous of him.

    I know Brian very well. He is a druggie loser who has ruined the lives of many.

    I sure would hate for my struggles and mistakes to be aired publicly. What about you losers? You love the anonymity to say what you want. But GOD HELP YOU when someone starts looking into your past.

    So to this blog and all the losers reading it: get a fucking life. And beware of karma. It’s a bitch.

  10. Yeah, I heard ol’ Magnum was kinda sore after we published his shithouse contract with BP. My own hunch is the boy is hurting for money. If we’ve gotton a fact wrong please give me some verifiable specifics and I’ll correct the record immediately.

    Thanks for taking the time to comment with us.

    sop

  13. I love the anger, everyone. So let’s get this straight– you can all burn this guy alive and it’s ok. But look how angry, intolerant, and childish you behave at the slightest word against you. Who is the hypocrite??

    By the way, I’m a girl. I’m well-educated. I’m also compassionate and have a bit of humanity in my heart. I feel such sadness when I read the hate and BS on this blog. None of you think there are consequences to the things you write. But you hurt people. This guy is a person like everyone else. He has a family. You are all a bunch of bullies.

    I’m not a moron. I am not a blow buddy. I am not a whore. But thank you for your comments. However, I did make a mistake of arguing with a bunch of fools. I was tired of watching you all spew hate week after week.

    This mob reaction is unbelievably ignorant. Hide behind your fake names. Call me all the bad names you like. I see only Hate, Ignorance, Jealousy, and Lies. Why???

    I do challenge each person who adds their ignorant statements to reflect on your life. I bet I could write a juicy blog that would tear your lives apart. The difference is NO ONE WOULD GIVE A DAMN. It is his success that infuriates you. Also, I would never throw stones when I know my house is glass. I couldn’t live with that much hate and pain in my heart. I’m sorry to the author of these posts, but I question the morality and humanity in your life as well.

    In the end, I realize I am the biggest fool for thinking anyone here has the slightest bit of conscience or empathy. Much less a life.

  14. No, Sop. I’m quite sure he is not hurting for money. Im also not speaking for anyone but myself. I can’t imagine he cares about this blog.

    I will say that he’s absolutely not the bad person anyone here makes him out to be. It breaks my heart to read these things. My father is dying right now. JWH fought for my parents tirelessly post Katrina. He saved their retirement. Gave my father his dignity back.

    So yes, I can tell all of you: he is a kind and generous man.
    I can also tell you I went to graduate school with his brother. Brian would not have anything without JWH.
    I wrote initially out of anger. Now I am writing from my heart, to the people who read this: why does the misfortune of others make you all so happy??

    God I hope my family never has to face this angry mob. I’m suffering the death of my father. So all of you can cheer and clap. Suffering is all around you. Hooray.

  15. Sock … sheeeeeeeeeeeeee’s back … and with a new story …

    “However, I did make a mistake of arguing with a bunch of fools. I was tired of watching you all spew hate week after week.”

    What a hypocrite you are my dear … again you have chosen an assault on the integrity of this blog and it’s commenters with the same tactics you say you disdain …

    Your pathetic attempt to gain sympathy for Haughtything is well…pathetic !!!

    I’m sure Haughtything, like most us, is a living contradiction of the good, bad and ugly … however it is his use of money and position to corrupt the Judicial System that is most insidious, and the main thrust of most of the legitimate criticisms posted here …

    And may suggest … don’t read what you don’t want to know …

  16. Mirror you mention misinformation but are woefully short of details. Magnum creates his own problems and no, running down his brother Brian does not justify Magnum or his actions.

    I’m happy he helped your family. Hopefully he wasn’t playing both sides against the middle in the litigation like his firm has done in several instances including his dealings with BP, which stink to high heaven.

    I welcome your input here and even better it appears you are highly educated. Magnum’s behavior is beyond unethical and nothing he did for your parents will change that fact.

    There are reasons Louisiana is a cesspool of corruption, Magnum being one of them. It may be an unpleasant truth but a truth it is. If you haven’t read all our coverage including this post please do so before passing judgment on our coverage of this very troubled man.

    http://slabbed.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/in-this-episode-of-magnum-j-d-the-conclusion-to-our-two-hour-special-pimpin-aint-easy-so-lets-hop-aboard-the-ho-train/

    sop

  17. I didn’t mean to start this.
    Whit: I use an alias to avoid any harassment. I have family too.

    It was childish of me to respond. As I said, I’m well-acquainted with the family, so it is difficult not to act out. I understand your position, Sop. My intentions seemed noble, but my lashing out is only simple-minded nonsense. I certainly don’t want to stir this boiling pot.
    I bow to the restless mob.

  18. Take a Look, There are times when people overlook the bad that people are capable of doing because of the good things they have done. Al Capone was loved among the public because of the “good” he showed toward the people. There is NO doubt that he was a very bad individual and the ways he obtained the monies to do “good” were questionable.
    I think this blog just likes to keep everything out in the open so the readers can make up their own minds. The amount of times the MSM has taken leads from this site and created breaking news stories on the corruption in government speaks to the quality of the information produced.
    With that, Thanks for all of the hard work SOP, Whit, Roche, and all of the others.

  19. SOP has hit the nail on the head. Magnum runs EVERY single judicial campaign in the metro NOLA area. Whether a corrupting influence actually exists, only FBI wiretaps will tell. This I can say – the stench of impropriety is overwhelming. It is inappropriate, and the round world of ethical misdeeds will catch up with him one day.

    While Magnum may give the appearance of being a “nice guy” who does good for families, his orgy of PR and self-aggrandizement is equally as repulsive as his ethical challenges. These are facts, not born of any hatred for the guy or jealousy. As I said, I sleep well every night.

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