Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Porn Star got his start from neighbor NEW YORK, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Mark Rotenberg of New York earns his living like a lot of others -- buying and selling -- but his product of choice is smut. Advertisement Rotenberg, who writes pornographic books and buys and sells erotica, got his start when his heirless neighbor died, and he started going through what city workers left behind in the man's apartment, including Cruikshank drawings, Civil War newspapers, Picasso lithographs and erotica, New York magazine reports. Rotenberg is on the lookout for what he describes as the "holy grail" of pornography: blue movies done by mainstream stars like Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford, but it is unclear whether such works actually exist. He also would like to get his hands on the first Playboy featuring Monroe, said to be worth $7,000, and an original copy of "My Secret Life," a Victorian sex diary said to be worth $500,000. Advertisement High school offering 12 condoms a week BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A California high school apparently has established a club for students who are sexually active -- and the wannabes. The Condom Club gives participants a sticker that can then be flashed at the student health center for a dozen free condoms a week, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Parents of students at Berkeley High School found out about the club through the Student Daily Bulletin, which is sent out by e-mail daily. Chronicle writer G. Pascal Zachary said after he got over his initial amusement about a Condom Club in general, he was stunned by the number of condoms being offered to students. "I don't know sex workers who need that many condoms. Certainly none of my middle-age friends need 12 condoms a week. High school students do?" he wrote. Zachary said after a few weeks he worked up the nerve to ask his son whether he had joined the club. He said when the youth answered negatively, "I wasn't sure whether to be glad or sad, since I didn't have the nerve to ask him whether he's having sex." Bit of Plymouth Rock for sale on eBay Advertisement PLYMOUTH, Mass., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- For someone who wants a piece of American history, or at least American myth, a piece of Plymouth Rock is coming up for sale on eBay. The sale begins Thursday and runs through Thanksgiving, the Boston Globe reported. The seller, from Orleans on Cape Cod told the newspaper that his piece of the rock came originally from a director of the Pilgrim Society. It comes with a business card from that director and the inscription "A bit of Plymouth Rock taken from the original about 1858." The rock has had a mixed history. It was first identified as the landing place 1714, almost 100 years after the fact, by a 90-year-old man who had known some of the original settlers. The rock broke into two pieces when the Sons of Liberty tried to drag it up to the Liberty Pole. Pieces were given to the Smithsonian and to the Pilgrim Hall Museum and removed by souvenir hunters. Peggy Baker, executive director of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, said it's hard to say what it might fetch at auction. "It's like anything that's a memento," she said. "They're worth what somebody's willing to pay for them." Advertisement Art by convicted killers sold on the Internet BOSTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A serial sex slayer's drawing of Jesus could reap a handsome reward for the Massachusetts convict when it is auctioned online. Bidding for Alfred Gaynor's original, "A Righteous Man's Reward," will start at $15 at www.fortunesociety.org, an advocacy group for prisoners. Massachusetts law does not prohibit convicted killers from profiting from their notoriety, the Boston Herald reported. Gaynor's drawing is one of 287 inmate entries the Fortune Society will cull to 130 for a show in New York City next month, "Insider Art: The New Outsider Art." The sale has raised the ire of Hampden District Attorney William Bennett. "Will they be showing pictures of the women he murdered at the same time?" Bennett asked on behalf of Gaynor's victims. Gaynor is serving four life sentences at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Collectors who attend the show or view the artwork online will not be told of the crimes behind the creations.
