Lifestyle
'It was sexy, it was fun': Why these waterbed devotees never gave up on the jiggle
The bed in Nancy Gerrish’s bright Los Feliz home appears perfectly normal — carved wooden headboard, fuzzy brown blanket, cream-colored bed skirt. The sheets are a tasteful leopard print. A few brocade throw pillows lie atop the spread to complete the earth-tone look.
But beneath that plush exterior, Gerrish’s bed hides a jiggling secret.
Sit on the mattress’ edge and it wobbles and undulates. Lie down and it rocks gently, as if you’re floating above a temperate pool of water.
And indeed, you are.
In L.A., water rules everything around us. Drink up, cool off and dive into our stories about hydrating and recreating in the city.
“I tell people I have a waterbed, and everyone laughs,” says Gerrish, 78, a financial planner with white curly hair and manicured lavender nails. “But it’s a very comfortable bed to sleep in, and I personally don’t know why the world doesn’t have this.”
If you thought waterbeds had gone the way of 1970s trends like Troll dolls and polyester pantsuits, you are mostly correct. The wavy vinyl mattresses that became a symbol of the era’s sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll lifestyle may no longer be part of the collective consciousness except as the butt of a joke in a period film or as a forbidden item on a boilerplate apartment lease. But they can still be found gently rippling in a handful of Southern California bedrooms.
Waterbeds account for less than 2% of all mattress sales today, according to the Specialty Sleep Assn., but the few remaining retailers receive daily calls from stubborn holdouts like Gerrish — mostly older folks who bought a fluid-filled mattress decades ago, fell in love with its wavy motion and won’t sleep on anything else. Now, these waterbed enthusiasts scour the internet for replacement mattresses, heaters and water treatment systems, determined to resist sleeping on standard mattresses — what they call “dead beds” — for as long as they can.
“I worry,” said Donna Martin, 77, of Glendale, who has been sleeping in a waterbed for 50 years. “I think to myself if I ever have to go into a home, they won’t give me no waterbed.”
Forty-seven students from UCLA pile on top of a water bed , March 10, 1976, to establish a new record for a human pyramid on a water bed in Los Angeles. They broke the old record of 16, according to the press agent, in a stunt to publicize a then-current Hollywood production.
(Wally Fong / Associated Press)
The ‘Pleasure Pit’ boom
The modern waterbed was invented in 1968 by Charles Hall, a graduate student at San Francisco State, as part of his master’s thesis in design. Hall, then 24, had originally set out to create the world’s most comfortable chair, filling a plastic sack with gelatin and then cornstarch with disappointing results. Eventually, he landed on a winning formula — an 8-foot water-filled square vinyl mattress. He called it the “Pleasure Pit” and imagined it as a bed-chair hybrid — the only piece of furniture one would need.
“It was new, it was exciting, it was different, it was sexy, it was fun. It was our generation’s bed.”
— Denny Boyd, former president of the Waterbed Manufacturers Association.
His prototype was featured in a show called “Happy Happenings” at the San Francisco Cannery art gallery that summer and articles about a new-fangled waterbed soon were appearing in newspapers and magazines across the country. A modern sleep trend was born.
“It was new, it was exciting, it was different, it was sexy, it was fun,” said Denny Boyd, former president of the Waterbed Manufacturers Assn., who once owned 35 waterbed stores throughout Texas, Missouri and Louisiana. “It was our generation’s bed.”
Waterbed sales skyrocketed from an estimated $13 million in 1971 to $1.9 billion in 1986, according to the New York Times. The mattresses were fairly cheap, but sales of the heavy wood frames that kept the mattresses from flopping around, plus water heaters and conditioners, brought in big bucks. By 1991, roughly 1 in every 5 mattresses sold in America was fluid-filled, according to the Washington Post. Hall received a patent for his invention in 1971 but rarely enforced it, and young entrepreneurs quickly turned the waterbed business into a lucrative industry.
“There were a whole lot of people who were millionaires by the time they were 25,” Boyd said.
It was a wild, sex-soaked business. One early ad declared, “Two things are better on a waterbed. One of them is sleeping.” Boyd remembers hosting pajama party sales events at his stores where customers would show up in outrageous sleepwear — see-through nighties and G-strings. The store served wine and cheese and stayed open until 3 or 4 a.m.
“It was more than R-rated,” Boyd said.
Competition among the mostly male sales force was fierce. “People used to throw rocks at each other’s stores and look in dustbins to see client lists,” Boyd said. “At the trade shows, you had to hire a security guard to watch your space so people wouldn’t sneak back in and poke holes in your mattress.”
By the mid-1990s, however, the party was over. After a precipitous rise, the waterbed market dried up. Boyd says the decline was due to a handful of factors, one of which was the advent of the “softside” waterbed mattress, which looked and felt more like a traditional bed and didn’t require pricy bed frames or special sheets — accessories that generated the bulk of the revenue for waterbed stores. At the same time, several new alternative mattress technologies hit the market, including airbeds, the Sleep Number, Tempur-Pedic and memory foam.
“These were more conventional beds, easier to sell and less complicated,” Boyd said. “They also had lots of advertising behind them.”
In 1995, the Waterbed Manufacturers Assn. rebranded itself as the Specialty Sleep Assn.
Donna Martin, 77, rests on her waterbed in her apartment in Glendale. Martin has used waterbeds for the past 50 years.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Dedicated ‘water heads’ remain
For some, the waterbed was never a passing trend. It‘s a lifelong devotion.
Gerrish, the financial planner from Los Feliz, bought her first water-filled mattress in 1996 after sleeping on a friend’s waterbed. “I couldn’t believe how comfortable it was,” she said. “It’s very soft on all your joints, and if you like to cuddle, your arm sinks into the bed so there’s no pressure on it.”
She moved her waterbed to Los Angeles from New York 21 years ago. When she eventually sells her Los Feliz home, she hopes to take it with her wherever she moves next. (She was relieved to learn that it is illegal for landlords to forbid waterbeds in California in rental units built after 1973, though they can require tenants to have insurance for damage caused by the bed.)
“I feel so cozy. It’s hard to get out of it,” she said. “And anyone visiting me loves it. I think the [traditional] mattress companies don’t want this information getting out.”
Gerrish has been sleeping on a water-filled mattress for 28 years, but several L.A. waterbed lovers have had an even longer relationship with Hall’s 1968 invention.
Martin, the 77-year-old in Glendale, has been sleeping on a waterbed since she got her first one as a hand-me-down from a friend.
“I’ve had five mattresses since the first time I set one up. I love it,” she said.
Recently, she slept on her sister’s Swedish memory foam mattress while taking care of her pets for the weekend. The verdict? No, thank you. Martin has a squashed disk in her spine and finds the waterbed is easier on her hips.
“At first it was OK, but then the same thing happened, too much pressure,” she said. “I would rather not sleep in something else.”
A closeup of a waterbed at the Afloat factory in Corona.
(Chris Carlson / Associated Press)
City Furniture CEO Keith Koenig shows the new waterbed on display as he speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Tamarac, Fla., in 2018. Koenig and inventor Charles Hall, pioneers of the waterbed industry in the United States, are hoping to generate a new wave of popularity for the old furniture concept by using a wholesome new pitch.
(Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)
Steve Hertzmann, 62, of San Pedro, gets it. He’s been a waterbed devotee for 40 years and is surprised that the wavy mattresses have never made a comeback.
“The best part is in the wintertime when you’re freezing cold,” he said. “The waterbed has a heater, and you hop in and you’re all warm.”
Marty Pojar, who has a store called the Waterbed Doctor in Westminster, would love to see a renaissance, but he thinks the technology needs a rebrand.
“The word ‘waterbed’ creates a stigma,” he said. “When people hear it, they are thinking of the big, old wood-frame waterbeds with lots of wave action.”
In fact, waterbeds have evolved over the years. Consumers can now pick among mattresses that offer old-school full-motion waves and others that are semi-waveless or have almost no waves at all. Many beds also have two separate water mattresses, one on each side, so if two people are sleeping together and one person gets out of bed, the other doesn’t experience any rocking.
With enough advertising dollars behind it, Pojar thinks renaming waterbeds “flotation sleep systems with temperature control” could bring in new customers.
“Reeducating the public is a big challenge, but there is a big opportunity there, I believe,” Pojar said.
For now, longtime devotees are keeping his business alive. Change can be difficult for a lifelong waterbed fan, as Larry Johnson of Mar Vista has learned firsthand.
The accountant slept on a waterbed for 50 years, until May, when his wife convinced him that a standard mattress would make it easier to get out of bed as they age.
A few days in, Johnson was on the fence. The “dead bed” was not as soft as his waterbed. He missed the rocking motion.
“It’s going to take some getting used to,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023.
Sergei Guneyev/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Sergei Guneyev/AFP via Getty Images
When we think of dictators, often the image that comes to mind is of a lone strongman, whose main concern is holding power within his own borders. But Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum says today’s dictators are actually working together in a global fight to dismantle democracy.
In her new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Applebaum describes a “network of convenience” that exists among various autocratic states, including Russia, China, North Korea, Turkey, Hungary and Venezuela among others.
“There isn’t a secret room like in a James Bond movie where all the leaders meet; it’s not like that,” she says. “It’s like a big corporation that has different companies, and each company does its own thing, but they have loose ties, and they cooperate when it’s convenient.”
Applebaum says alliances among the global autocracy center on issues of military influence, kleptocracy and defeating democracy — and she sees a link between former President Donald Trump these concerns.
“Simply being someone who’s interested in using foreign policy to make money for oneself. I mean, that already makes Trump similar to a lot of Central Asian leaders or Africans, not to mention Putin,” she says.
Looking forward, Applebaum says she hopes her book helps re-engage people who may have become cynical by the political process. “What the autocrats — whether they’re in American politics or in Russian politics or in Chinese politics — what they want is for you to be disengaged. They want you to drop out,” she says. “I want people to be convinced that ideas matter, that we’re going to have to defend and protect our political system if we want to keep it.”
Autocracy, Inc.
Penguin Random House/Penguin Random House
hide caption
toggle caption
Penguin Random House/Penguin Random House
Interview highlights
On how the Russian war in Ukraine is a war between autocracy and democratic world
In the last few years, [Putin] had begun talking about the end of the democratic world or the end of Democratic dominance. … The war was an attempt to show that he doesn’t care anymore about the world that was created in 1945. He doesn’t care about the UN charter. He doesn’t care about UN documents and organizations that use the language of human rights. He doesn’t care about the so-called unspoken rule or unwritten rule that we don’t change borders in Europe by force. … He’s going to show that NATO is powerless, that it’s a paper tiger, and that none of the international institutions can control him because he stands for a new order and a new future. And he has used that language. And his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, specifically said this war is about a new world order.
On how Putin set the example for leaders to use money to gain power
In my view, the rise of these new forms of autocracy were made possible by the nature of modern financial transactions. If you look closely at the rise of Putin … he began essentially by stealing money. He stole money from the city of St. Petersburg. He took it out of the country. He laundered it through Western institutions, brought it back in, and he and others, mostly in the former KGB who were doing this, eventually enrich themselves. And they enrich themselves using Western partners, Western companies, connections to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
They were enabled in this process by Western financial institutions — German, European, American. And, first of all, that gave them a certain cynicism about the Western world. So, “OK, you guys talk about democracy and transparency, but you’re perfectly willing to help us steal.” … You can see modern dictators also beginning to learn this, also beginning to understand they can use tax havens or they can filter their money through Western banks so that there are different ways of stealing and hiding money. And it’s become something that people imitate really around the world.
On what she calls “information laundering”
I should start by saying that the autocratic world takes ideas very seriously and takes information seriously, and thinks a lot about how to get their message not just to us, but to Africa, to Latin America, to other countries around the world. They invest in it heavily. The Chinese have invested in a huge network of television and radio and website and newspaper and other forms of broadcasting in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia and elsewhere. They have content-sharing agreements with different newspapers around the world. Their wire service, Xinhua, is very cheap and easy to get hold of, very often cheaper than AP or Reuters. And they also think about how they can get information to people, in a way that they accept.
They have an idea that you want information to seem native, that it will seem local. And so they would rather have an African newspaper write something positive about China or write something negative about America, rather than it coming from a Chinese source. And the Russians in particular, have enthusiastically run with that idea. And they have also begun pretty systematically to create websites, newspapers and other forms of media that look like they are Ecuadorian or Peruvian or they’re in Arabic, or they’re in French. … And they look native. They’re using local languages, but they rely on, as I said, on Russian narratives and especially on these authoritarian narratives about how about the degeneracy and decline of America in the West, about the superiority of autocratic states.
On an autocratic strategy that relies on lies to control the political narrative
Trump began his presidency with a lie about how many people had appeared on the National Mall for his inauguration. … It was a very stupid lie. I mean, who cares how many people were in the National Mall? But he wanted the U.S. Park Service to lie about it, and he wanted his press spokesman to lie about it. And again, that was partly to show who’s in control here? I’m in control, and I get to decide what the truth is. And it’s also to confuse people and alienate them from politics. I mean, during the Trump administration, we spent a lot of time arguing about what was true and what wasn’t. …
Constant lies also create this kind of cynicism and apathy. It’s a way of keeping people out of politics and preventing civic engagement. I mean, a lot of these authoritarian states know that … [the] biggest threat to their power is their own people. And so their goal is to prevent people from ever organizing, from ever being engaged, from ever caring at all. And one of the ways they do that is through this constant stream of lies that make people feel like they’re simply unable to know anymore what’s true and what’s not.
On how political arguments went from policy to culture wars
The way we did politics even 10 years ago, which was we argued about real things. Right? We argued about health care. We argued about infrastructure investment. … So that was the stuff that politics was supposed to be about once. Politics isn’t about that anymore. Once it’s about existential questions and identity, and once it’s only culture wars which are easily exaggerated …. then you’re in the realm where it’s much easier for demagogues and for people who are good at evoking and creating emotion to win arguments. And I think it just took a long time for the opposition forces to understand how this works.
Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for the web.
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis Hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, on July 7, 2008.
Sandro Campardo/AP/Keystone
hide caption
toggle caption
Sandro Campardo/AP/Keystone
LONDON — John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.
A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death Tuesday, saying the musician died Monday at his home in California. “Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.
He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.
Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.
“I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”
A small but enduring thing. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition rankled a bit, and he wasn’t shy about saying so.
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, on July 7, 2008.
Sandro Campardo/AP/Keystone
hide caption
toggle caption
Sandro Campardo/AP/Keystone
“I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.”
Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for “Wake Up Call” which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album “The Sun Is Shining Down.” He also won official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.
He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton,” is considered one of the best British blues albums.
Mayall once was asked if he kept playing to meet a demand, or simply to show he could still do it.
“Well, the demand is there, fortunately. But it’s really for neither of those two things, it’s just for the love of the music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we have a workout.”
Mayall was born on Nov. 29, 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester in central England.
Sounding a note of the hard-luck bluesman, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favorite pub was.”
His father also played guitar and banjo, and his records of boogie-woogie piano captivated his teenage son.
Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — a year on the left hand, a year on the right, “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”
The piano was his main instrument, though he also performed on guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a distinctive, strained-sounding voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played all the other instruments for his 1967 album, “Blues Alone.”
Mayall was often called the “father of British blues,” but when he moved to London in 1962 his aim was to soak up the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon were among others drawn to the sound.
The Bluesbreakers drew on a fluid community of musicians who drifted in and out of various bands. Mayall’s biggest catch was Clapton, who had quit the Yardbirds and joined he Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was unhappy with the Yardbirds’ commercial direction.
Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist later remembered that Mayall had “the most incredible collection of records I had ever seen.”
Mayall tolerated Clapton’s waywardness: He disappeared a few months after joining the band, then reappeared later the same year, sidelining the newly arrived Peter Green, then left for good in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which rocketed to commercial success, leaving Mayall far behind.
British Blues pioneer John Mayall performs with this band the Bluesbreakers at the Deutsche Museum in Munich, West Germany, on Jan. 21, 1970.
Claus Hampel/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Claus Hampel/AP
Clapton, interviewed for a BBC documentary on Mayall in 2003, confessed that “to a certain extent I have used his hospitality, used his band and his reputation to launch my own career,”
“I think he is a great musician. I just admire and respect his steadfastness,” Clapton added.
Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his song-writing abilities.
Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as a Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, valued the wide latitude which Mayall allowed his soloists.
“You’d have complete freedom to do whatever you wanted,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You could make as many mistakes as you wanted, too.”
Mayall’s 1968 album “Blues from Laurel Canyon” signaled a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.
The following year he released “The Turning Point,” arguably his most successful release, with an atypical four-man acoustic lineup including Mark and Almond. “Room to Move,” a song from that album, was a frequent audience favorite in Mayall’s later career.
The 1970s found Mayall at low ebb personally, but still touring and doing more than 100 shows a year.
“Throughout the ’70s, I performed most of my shows drunk,” Mayall said in an interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine in 1990. One consequence was an attempt to jump from a balcony into a swimming pool that missed — shattering one of Mayall’s heels and leaving him with a limp.
“That was one incident that got me to stop drinking,” Mayall said.
In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the personnel changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.
Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They had two sons.
The “Green Dress Girl” from TikTok is looking past all the negative comments on her viral post … ’cause she’s looking forward in hopes of landing a gig with Beyoncé!!!
Rachel Parrish — BKA her TikTok handle @raechristine___ — recently went viral after her critique of club culture sparked a major online conversation … and she joined us on “The TMZ Podcast” to tell us how her life’s changed.
TMZ.com
Despite being incessantly mocked for her club fit — a green dress and some white heels — Rachel says she’s mostly ignored the haters and focused on the positives … like being recognized in the airport.
For the uninitiated … Rachel was on vacation when she shared a TikTok ripping contemporary club culture … namely, her bewilderment at the lack of women wearing heels in the club.
The internet did its thing and she basically became a meme overnight … with lots of folks poking fun at her green dress and heels.
Her OG video has sparked millions of new TikToks … and Rachel hopes her 15 minutes of fame pay major dividends … in the form of a collab with Beyoncé.
Rachel’s currently working as a sports marketing executive, and she hopes she can translate her talents and viral fame into her big break.
And if Beyoncé’s not around, Rachel has another A-lister in mind. Take a guess …
Ohio GOP Lawmakers File Bills To Restrict And Regulate Intoxicating Hemp Products, Including Delta-8 THC
Oklahoma Student Elected President of American Legion Boys Nation
Oregon Football Tight End Terrance Ferguson Proposes to High School Sweetheart
Small Business Insurance Pennsylvania
Rhode Island home prices hit a median sale price of nearly $500k – The Boston Globe
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
At least 2 dead as tornadoes hit Alabama, damage homes across Southeast
Biden won't pardon Hunter, White House reaffirms, but critics aren't so sure
Von der Leyen faces tough puzzle as conservatives demand big Commission portfolios
Tennis star Coco Gauff will carry the U.S. flag at the Olympic opening ceremony
Trump team files FEC complaint over transfer of Biden's $91M to Harris campaign: 'Brazen money grab'
North Korean trash balloon lands on South Korea’s presidential compound
-
World7 days agoOne dead after car crashes into restaurant in Paris
-
News5 days agoVideo: Young Republicans on Why Their Party Isn’t Reaching Gen Z (And What They Can Do About It)
-
News1 week agoIn Milwaukee, Black Voters Struggle to Find a Home With Either Party
-
News1 week agoVideo: Biden Asks America to ‘Lower the Temperature’
-
Politics6 days agoFox News Politics: The Call is Coming from Inside the House
-
World4 days agoFreshers' week in Strasbourg for new EU lawmakers
-
News6 days agoVideo: J.D. Vance Accepts Vice-Presidential Nomination
-
Politics1 week agoEmotional Graham delivers message of ‘love’ for Trump, says US needs ‘soul-searching’