Notes on Seattle, November 28, 2008, Part I - The Eel & Chelz' Path to Enlightenment

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: the relations did ply me with drink, as they did the same to themselves, though each to his/her own particular taste, and so I went to bed groggy Thanksgiving night from something else besides mere fatigue and the mythic (and silly) mega-dose of tryptophan. My brother Chris, who often goes by the self-given appellation "Eel," knows well of my predilection for the ol' gin and tonic, and when I arrived, I found that having such items on reserve coincided neatly with the fact that we would not be leaving the environs in any way for the evening. Such fortuity was not to be believed, but so it happened to be, and thus I did make way with a couple of rounds of my favorite spiritual mix.

Not surprisingly, given the way things tend to work for me, I woke up at my normal time Friday morning, or slightly before that "normal" time, really. And my head was fine. A little too much so it seemed, as I immediately began my usual course of determination for the morning -- getting up, writing, reading, gaining knowledge and spewing it back out as nonsense for no reasonable person to divine. I spent the better part of an hour trying to teach myself Adobe Illustrator, and made some decent headway on a banner for the new Cinema for Space Lovers website, though I knew right away that what I was really doing was building a temporary model from which I would try and convince Sal to work his magic on it back home.

Once the brother and the sis-in-law (whom I shall only refer henceforth either by her name or as my sister) arose for the morning, after the normal round of personal ablutions, he hit the road. It had already been decided that we would hit the EMP and Science Fiction Museum on Saturday, so what I told them I wished was for them to choose some swell places to go to give me a taste of their Seattle experience. After a quick run to the bank, we began the trek...

FANTAGRAPHICS

Chris mentioned to me that we were going to first hit a section of the city called Georgetown. When I asked why, he replied, "Because we are going to the Fantagraphics bookstore." He had said the day before that there was such a place, and I knew that we would likely hit it at some point, but I was not fully prepared for it so early in the morning. I have numerous Fantagraphics volumes at home, and they are all easily attainable online or at other stores, but to imagine going into a place fully stocked with just about any tome dedicated to the history of the comic arts was just to much for me. Splitting its space with a pretty nifty LP store (I like that vinyl is still hanging around just enough to warrant a New Arrivals section, though some of them are merely recent antiquated acquisitions of the shop), the Fantagraphics store felt like a paradise from the moment I stepped through.

How I wish there were its like in my vicinity! Shelves and shelves of Peanuts, Popeye, Crumb, McCay... I just could not handle it! I actually had to step back and remind myself to not delve too deeply into the contents of the store, for fear of driving myself mad. Instead, I found a retreat in a small room at the back of the store which held 50%-off discount books, all of them damaged, out-of-print or sadly unloved, which may not be the actual reason, but where else would you put books no one wants to buy? Surprisingly, though there were extreme exceptions, many of the books don't seem too bad, and I could have easily made off with four or five slightly worn blocks of the hardback Peanuts run. But sense took over (I had very little room to transport items back, which I sort of did on purpose), and so I finally decided to grab a pair of quite thin releases in the Pogo series (#s 9 & 11), which, along with Krazy Kat, is one of my top priorities strip-wise.

It is a dull enough morning that the girl with the expected look and countenance working the counter drifts back and forth sharing conversation with what I presume was the owner of the record portion. (I am unaware of the true nature of the owners/employees of the respective stores. All I know is that business was slow enough to very nearly demand such interaction as a means to simply stay awake.) Besides our trio, a handful of others zip in and out of the place while we are there, and after about half an hour, I finally made my Pogo decision (not that I really had a choice, and besides, the books are actually in perfect shape, so they may have fallen into either the out-of-print or my proposed sadly-unloved category after all). The counter girl is a delight, and she is more than happy to tell Chris and myself about several upcoming events at the store, including an appearance by Peter Bagge's band, which the record guy said could actually prove to make people leave the store instead. "But who knows?" he adds. Chris and I grab several free items to round out our purchase and then we leave to go find Chelz, who had already slipped away to check out another place, and presumably get some food.

But, wait! There is something else that Chris and I get at Fantagraphics, and it could well prove to be the most important part of the trip. The store keeps a series of differently sized dummy books on hand, all fairly cheap in price but quite well-made. I find a 7" x 7" hardcover beauty with an all-white dust cover, 144 pages thick, while Chris opts for a slightly taller one. Mine only costs $6.95, and while I have no idea how I am going to fill the book, my intent is to try and jump-start my drawing abilities once more. Of course, it is entirely possible that I will find some other use for the volume, but over the course of the next couple days in Seattle, Chris will have already leapt into filling his with some amazing ink work, and will likely have his largely complete by the time I next see him in December.

Br'er Rik? He lay low, still thinking about what he wants to do with it, and for the next two nights, he falls asleep wondering what that will be, still reluctant to actually put pencil to paper. While I have burst through a long and bitter writer's block victorious, likely for life, I am still mired in an artistic quicksand as regards my ability to draw again. I had hoped that this, along with the remainder of the weekend, staying in close proximity with Chris, who is never at a loss to do so when around me, will help trigger this. Not yet, though. I am far too shy to draw around others, and it seems that I might be far too recessed into my own doubts to ever get out.

(To be continued...)

Notes on Thanksgiving in Seattle, November 27, 2008 Pt. II

Chris met me at the airport in a new disguise to my eyes: a full beard jutted out from his face, and it came equipped with a mustache almost dandily curled upward. I told him he looked a bit like Doug Martsch from Built to Spill (not really the mustache though, just the beard combined with my brother's overall features), and Chris says that Martsch hasn't had a beard for a while. Such trivial blather works as a comfort saying between us, not as any form of code but just the way we converse. Unlike with many families or siblings separated by distance, there is no awkward "getting to know you again" stuff between Mark and Chris and I when we get back together again. I cannot speak for the other two, but I know that I am my most at ease around either of them, even more so than with Jen, and especially more so than with any of my quartet of parents (but "no disrespect though," as Jon Stewart would say in a mock Bronxian tone).

Within minutes, we are in Chris' car to head home to see Chelsea and possibly eat Turkey Day dinner, depending on how the turkey is doing. I have a surprise waiting in the car for me: Django Bongo, Chris and Chelz' newest addition to the household, a rather large, supposed husky-golden retriever mix, though I see nothing but German shepherd in his features and especially his eyes. He is a lovely pup, but he is almost deathly afraid of strangers, and sometimes never gets over his shyness. He is twirling around in the backside trying in vain to cram his too-large body into the too-small area on the floor behind the driver's seat, which leaves his left back leg straddling the seat while he seeks to jam his nose underneath the backseat. I say his name gently to try and reassure, but all this gets is quick looks of fear and then a return to his twirling, leg-catching and nose-jamming routine. Luckily for the sweet boy, it doesn't take us long to get home, and he then gets to open his shyness act on a larger stage.

It is grand to see Chelsea again, and I greet her as my sister, not as my brother's wife. I have always thought the world of her, and never as someone that I had to tolerate to hang around my brother. We have all been saddled with significant others who are more of an appendage than they are a missing and necessary piece of the complicated puzzle of loneliness. This is not the case here, and I find her as vital to my relationship to my brother Chris as I do Marcie to my relationship with my brother Mark. I hope that they see how Jen works the same way for me.

It is going to be a couple more hours until dinner, but the two of them had brined the turkey the day before and did a lot of prep work, so it all goes relatively smoothly on the way to an awesome dinner. Just being there was going to make any dinner awesome, whether we had turkey or ordered Chinese takeout, but it is nice when the food is actually great. While we talk and catch up while the food is being finished, I take every opportunity to try and win over Django, having already found a great fan in their older dog, the beautiful Sihva, on previous visits. By dinner time, I will have only been able to pet his nose and head a handful of times, and he will absolutely not get his body and closer to me than that.

Chelsea has a running battle with his mom on the phone over how long to cook a turkey. Lenore insists that four hours is necessary; Chelz believes she can do it in a shorter time. (At least, this is what I was perceiving on my end of things.) As it turns out, the temperature is more than adequate to remove the turkey at Chelz' projected time, though several other dishes need to be either cooked or reheated before we can proceed with the dining portion of the program. We get to eat around 6:30, and everything is great, stocked with the usual suspects of Thanksgiving fare, but given a twist in this particular kitchen. Chelz asks us if the turkey is too dry, but Chris and I couldn't disagree more... the turkey is exceedingly juicy and delicious, probably more so than at any other dinner I have had except when Leif deep-fried one a few years back. And Chelsea has definitely won the time-temp battle too, as Lenore calls to say that she overcooked hers at four hours, and it came out far too dry. It is a small but delicious victory in Seattle.

Django started to lose a tad bit of shyness when I decided to allow the kids to assist me in finishing off my second plate. Just a few scraps of turkey each, but it clearly helps in de-icing the frosty relations between visiting uncle and new family pup. By evening's end, I am able to skritch behind his ears for a few seconds and he has started to come up to me when I call his name. But no more. That will have to wait until tomorrow. But I will win him over. Oh, yes... I will win him over... Django Bongo Johnson will be my buddy.

Notes on Thanksgiving in Seattle, November 27, 2008 Pt. I

Left on a jet plane (please cue my favorite song by PP&M -- written by Mr. Denver -- from when I was five) at noon to see Chris and Chelsea for Thanksgiving dinner later in the afternoon. They told me previously they were extremely excited to cook their first attempt at a Turkey day soiree -- at least they seemed excited on the phone. I don't really care what the result is... seeing them again is the important thing. I have decided that beginning next year, I am going to try to make two trips a year to see both Mark and Chris. Mark is easier because he is so much closer, but Seattle is close enough to not make it a difficult undertaking. The trick in taking multiple trips is getting Dad and Joann to understand how important it is to me to see my brothers, both emotionally and artistically. I do want to get up and see the parentals once a year as well, but all of this needs to come with the understanding that the other parties need to make the attempt to come down and see us in return. I do not want things to turn into a situation where any of us start putting off seeing members of our immediate family for a number of years. Maybe once a year to go see each one is more doable, especially if there is some assurance that they will reciprocate.

But, for now, Seattle, which I have considered for a number of years to be my favorite city. My last few zips there have literally been "zips" -- airport layovers for anywhere from two hours to fourteen hours, which afforded me little in the way of time to catch up with whomever I wished to catch up there. For me, this is now my brother, my friends Tim and Kathryn (and boys), and my old school pal Jim. I have an uncle there in Olympia and Joann's brother Neil, and I wouldn't mind seeing them as well, but I am probably going to call such plans on account of selfishness.

Explanation: the last time I was through, when I stayed at C+C's new home for one night (going to an awesome restaurant in the process) before catching an early morning flight up to Anchorage, Chris and Chelz said that it was too bad I wasn't staying longer, because there were all of these places they had discovered since they settled there. What they wanted to do, they explained, is show me THEIR Seattle. I have my Seattle, which pretty much consists of walking the waterfront, going to the Aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo, shopping and hanging around downtown and at Pike's Place Market, and going to Mariners games. That's Seattle to me. But these were usually the things I discovered, or did again and again, because I was often hanging with the same people on these trips or didn't know better. Yes, I have done brunch atop the Space Needle and I have ridden the Monorail. I have taken the ferry over to Bainbridge Island (and stayed there numerous times) and seen porpoises racing along its wake. I have been to the Pacific Science Center and saw my first IMAX movie there, and I have hit a number of museums and galleries. I have haunted the bakeries and bars downtown and stayed in a pretty great hotel down there, allowing me to soak in the nightlife on a few occasions.

But I want to discover more...

I spent the first half hour of my flight to Seattle contemplating a new scenario for air travel, in which families with children five and under, and especially those sporting bawlers of the infant variety, are made to ride in an airborne form of steerage (as opposed to riding in coach, which is essentially steerage at the current moment. No more crying, whining, spitting up, diaper shitting and temper tantrums in the cabin. The brats will be confined to an area just in front of the luggage, but I will allow said area to be heated and even laden with seats, as long as it is also soundproofed for the considerate people in the normal seating area above.

Thoughts such as this filled my head after my initial reverie of having no one else seated in my half of the row was melted away like the current hopes and dreams of millions by a pair of kicking, shrieking under-six demons behind my seat and a wailing toddler of recent vintage directly in front of me. A headache began to set in, and no amount of furtive glances at the couple with the baby and the grandmother ignoring the other pair who I believe, from the quick stabs of my eyes through the seats to stare seethingly back at them every few minutes, are adorned with tiny little horns jutting out from their foreheads just below their hairline. Never mind that they come equipped with talking Mickey and Minnie dolls, which I am easily able to ignore since the hellspawn wielding them are even louder and more obnoxious. The grandmother ignores them through every jolt of passenger turbulence, and even manages to sleep through most of the trip. About halfway through the ride, there will commence a constant pounding and thumping to the back of my plane seat, but as I am a polite person in public, I try my best to turn up the Yatsura and ignore the wail of souls from the Pit of Despair that had opened up right behind me. None of this is helped by the fact that the boy keeps saying one phrase over and over -- I shit you not, he said it about four times, almost like a mantra -- "I'm all about Satan." Surely I was mishearing this, but then I thought, "What if he has a dad who watches Tenacious D, or is perhaps, himself, a Satan worshipper? What if this is acceptable in their family? I believe in that mythical creation as little as any other (except Bert Convy, whom I definitely keep the faith over, because I used to see him on TattleTales). Who am I to judge?" The third time Damien, Jr. said it, the grandmother calmly responded, "You are? Well... OK." I thought it best not to stir up the wrath of a clearly disturbed family, even if they were returning from a trip to Disneyland.

In front of me though, I met my sharpest foe, a drooling, wailing little 24-lb. bundle of pure evil. At least for that first half hour, that is what I considered her. I am sure the G-forces and the bumping of the plane are stressful for any toddler, going up or coming down. Hell, they are for most people. So I was willing to give this one a reprieve until we were stable and aloft, but the toddler crankiness continued for a while, just long enough for me to start conceiving my totalitarian restructuring of air travel seating arrangements. But then, in a moment of blessed silence, I got sucked into a trap. Said baby, draped over her porky mother's shoulder, saw me and smiled. A giant, Gerber's-laden grin spread across the face of her apple-cheeked disproportionate noggin and stole my heart. Evil baby! Horrid baby! Damn you, baby! Why have you brought me such joy when I am clearly hellbent on despising you? Quick staring at me with those beguiling big brown eyes and start crying again so I can have you whisked away to the belly of the plane posthaste! Stop being adorable, damn it!

Even with the adorable baby, who continued to giggle and smile at me for the last two hours of the flight (but I will not own up to playing peek-a-boo at all in that time, so don't push me on it -- I hate babies, and that is that)... yes, even with the adorable baby breaking into another fit of wailing on the landing, I was won over for good, and somehow I left the plane in a grand mood. Mostly this was from my excitement about meeting my brother again, but first I had to relieve myself in a desperate way. I bolted past the people who had deplaned just ahead of me, but by the time I reached the bathroom, there was already a long line of Larry Craig wannabes stretching out the door. I figured that instead of waiting, the best plan would be to zoom across the airport to another bathroom, a trip which took me just past the baggage exit where my brother stood waiting for me. As I thought, it was nearly empty. Having a couple of carry-on bags weighing me down, I figured the best thing to do would be to hit a stall and urinate in there. Boy, did I lose on Let's Make A Deal. Door #1 held a terrible splatter of what Robyn Hitchcock might describe as "tomatoes, hummus, chickpeas and some strips of skin," or at least that's what the fetid mess dripping rather freshly off the toilet seat seemed to resemble. I had to hold back my disgust before I added to that Boschian runoff of disgorged stomach remnants. (Little did I know that I would hear two more tales of ruptured meals in the days to come, with my story shared amongst our trio, and that the subject of barfing would almost become a leitmotif of the trip.)

(To be continued...)

Why I Am Heading Out of Town for Thanksgiving Day...

I thought Big G was done eating Steve on Halloween, but apparently it is a tradition in his family, and Steve's it seems, that extends across all holidays.

Just not safe at work sometimes, and I live pretty close to the office as well. Best to get out of town. Seattle, here I come!

The Bohemian Artifact Wing #2: Boog & Bear's Friday the 13th Marathon, Part 1

It started as what seemed like a joke to me: “Hey, we should watch all of the Friday the 13th films in a row, back to back, all the way through!”

A long-running joke, that is... The statement above would bounce back and forth between myself (who, in this particular section of the Pylon, will usually referred to by my Bohemian alias “Boogieman” or, most often, “Boog” – nobody in Alaska calls me “Rik” or “Rik Tod”, not even in formal settings… alas…) and my pal of long standing, Robear (again, known as Robert to the general populace, but every Bohemian goes mainly by nicknames, sometimes piles of them). I thought for a while that it was mainly one of those time-filling “we should do this” sort of statements that friends toss about while lounging about on a dull afternoon, but of which none of the parties are ever truly concerned of committing and following through. I had always considered the Friday the 13th statement to be along those lines. But Robear was actually deadly serious about it, and one day, looking for any conceivable option for avoiding the missus, finally decided to match his gravitas concerning a dozen or so hours of hockey-masked homicide and said, “Sure! Let’s do it!”

The trick to engaging in something like this is purposefully elevating your level of devotion to the cause. I can watch crappy horror films ‘til the cows come home to get slaughtered, but I have never been a huge fan of the Jason series. Seen them, yes – but only in the way that I have seen so, so many crappy horror films: in a search for actually decent horror films. Regardless, because I was for many long years absolutely unable NOT to tape any horror or sci-fi film that crossed my path, I did have six of the nine Jason films created to that point copied off of cable, including the most recent, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, which I had just snagged off of Pay-Per-View. (I had also seen seven of the films – I missed Parts 4 and 5 – in the theatre, and mostly on opening nights, because I was young and hanging out with various pals of low ambition for the evening. Two of the films (2 & 3) I saw in rather an inebriated state, which only helped matters.) Robear is not really known as a "horror" guy -- he's more of a comedy fiend, actually -- but I've never known him to shy away from any spook film. Hell, I saw Children of the Corn III with the guy. Clearly, our individual interests in completing such a task greatly varied, but once we decided to really, truly commit to the Jason Fest, we went through with it.

But just watching the films was not enough for me to get involved. I needed a project, a reason for doing the whole thing. And so, once the location and time of the marathon was locked in, Robear and I then decided we were going to keep track of how many people got killed in the films overall. Not just how many murder Jason or his pair of stand-ins commit, but any deaths at all in the films. I figured this would be a good enough anchor to keep our interesting going. But then we noticed patterns that occur merely from the set-in of the standard horror clichés, and we also noticed the lack of patterns that occur from random hands being engaged in the production of the films and the relative lack of foresight and an overall guiding plan thereof. We also decided to mark down some other random items (which I will detail in another portion of the archive), and some of it occurred to us or one of us as we made our way through the films, so sometimes our notes would be a tad incomplete. In all, by committing to the taking of notes, we were actually able to get through the first seven films in one sitting, before the early morning hours made it far too easy to succumb to slumber laying in front of the pulsing glow of the living room television. (A four hour nap left us refreshed enough to knock out the last two late on Saturday morning.)

Once more, my pack-rat ways have enabled me to relive this experience, which really is only important to Robear and myself, but enough of the remainder of Bohemia have heard about it over the years to warrant the placement of our quickly scribbled notes in the recently founded Bohemian Artifact archives. So, here are the first two pages of our official Friday the 13th Death Count, and while they were not created initially for purposes of internet usage (I barely understood the word at that time), since they have survived the years, I suppose it was inevitable that it would happen that I would place them upon the Pylon. The prevalent hand on these notes is my own, all left-handed and awkward when scrawling straight up and down, and whilst scrolling left to right. On the notes for Part 3 (page 2), you will glimpse the only sighting of Robear’s largely neater and more compact hand (though his hands, on the physical level, are far meatier) on the entry for Victim #12. As the body counts grew noticeably larger, Robear picked up more of the notes almost exactly halfway through Part V: A New Beginning. We had agreed to split the duties anyway, though with numerous other items of which to keep track, it’s not as if I could just nap through the remaining films whilst Robear scribbled away.

For those seeking a legend of some sort: “M” stands for Machete, “K” for Knife… there are other shortcuts taken on these pages which I am still attempting to decipher. At the bottom of page one, I cut it off purposefully as there was a phone number referenced by the phrase “Tony at R’s Dad’s,” which I think refers to Robear’s own pater, but I can’t recall. “R” could be any number of people, and uncertainty about whether it was still a working number made me cut if off. At the top left hand corner of the first page, there is an attempt to make sure that the year count is correct in the first film between Jason’s accidental death and that of the “modern” events. On the left hand side of the first page, it appears that we were coming up with reasons why each murder occurred, with examples being “bad acting,” “obscene wriggling,” “furthering Native stereotypes,” and on the second page, “drinking on the shitter.” Sadly, it appears we gave this game up after that last example.

(To be continued…)

Dylan Goes Select-Rik: Shuffle Mode, Friday Morning 11.21.08

Isn’t the whole point of shuffle mode that you get a decently mixed selection of the music on your iPod, regardless of how many songs you actually have on your iPod? I understand if you have an iPod Shuffle with only enough room for a few dozen tunes and you end up the same artists (assuming you have multiple songs from the same artist on your Shuffle) over and over again. But I have 16,000-plus tunes, and possibly about a thousand full albums, jammed onto Ymir (the name of my particular iPod). So you'd think that my little metal monster would have no problem throwing down clear lines of division between similar artists. 

But… well... apparently not.

As you can see on the list below, in the space of seven songs, I end up with two each from the Davies brothers and the Johns – F. and L., respectively – and the iPod goes on like it had done its job properly and all that. Wait a minute, Ymir… didn’t I hit shuffle mode? And please don’t use the excuse that it's because I have so many full albums by these groups on the machine that it becomes hard to avoid them. I have a full twelve Kinks albums in the mix (along with a few stray singles) along with thirteen TMBG albums… yes, that’s true. But with the exception of Richman, Beefheart and the Muppets, every other group in this short list has more than five albums in the mix as well. Costello also has a dozen (I own about twenty of his, so don’t think that I am not being particular in the overall selection) and Floyd has nine.

It is the cramming together so closely of the Kinks’ tunes that has me worried. Dammit! For once (two days in a row, really), I chose “shuffle.” I purposefully tried to mix things up, and this is what I get. 

It’s like Ymir is so used to my just careening straight through a whole album, he gets confused and doesn’t know what to do. Or maybe he is scared to mix things up, thinking that he has mistakenly fallen into the wrong mode, and that I will wing him across the road if he doesn’t keep me pointed down the normal listening pattern. He’s almost like a tiny little TiVo, only more aesthetically pleasing. Whatever it is, I will chalk it up to loyalty on Ymir’s part…

• Important in Your Life – Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
• Too Much Monkey Business – The Kinks
• The Army’s Tired Now – They Might Be Giants
• Set Me Free – The Kinks
• Valium Waltz – Old 97s
• Country Darkness – Elvis Costello & the Imposters
• San Tropez – Pink Floyd
• Something Grabbed Ahold of My Hand – They Might Be Giants
• Interview: The Tooth Fairy – The Sifl & Olly Show
• Ole! Tarantula – Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3
• Frownland – Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
• Get That Girl – Joe Jackson
• Seymour Stein – Belle and Sebastian
• Mahna Mahna – Jim Henson’s Muppets (The Muppet Show Soundtrack)

Dylan Goes Select-Rik: Shuffle Mode, Thursday Morning 11.20.08

Normally, the aural pathway on which I tread is paved solely with albums, and generally those of a single artist, but every once in a while, contrary to my nature, I need a little variety on the headphones. So it goes occasionally on my morning walks to work, on those rare days when I just can’t decide which album to give a listen. So I hit the ol’ Shuffle Mode, and roll with whatever hits the ears. Sure, sometimes I get a little shocked by what I hear: “Do I really have that on my iPod, let alone my collection?” or “What the hell is this???” When you have crammed over 16,000 songs onto an iPod (and it will get worse when I jump up to 160 gigs from a mere 80), you can often get lost in the mass of artists and albums. Especially when you drop on compilations or soundtracks, which you probably purchased for three or four songs at most, and you have never really become all that acquainted with the rest. Sometimes these surprises are grand, and sometimes they are a sign that you have a little more housecleaning to do.

Not this time. All of the songs yesterday morning were meant to be on there, compilation selections or not. It’s certainly a good first glimpse at what I have going through my head at any given time. You are going to notice a great profusion of Sifl and Olly and South Park bits interspersed with the actual music on these lists, and that’s simply because I threw them on the iPod to serve almost like crazed little DJs from time to time. Enjoy…

Talk! Robot is Better Than Olly – The Sifl and Olly Show
Manny’s Bones – Los Lobos
Hard Time Killing Floor Blues – Chris Thomas King
Broke In Two – They Might Be Giants
You Are the Sunshine of My Life – Stevie Wonder
Testify (Parts 1 & 2) – The Isley Brothers (live)
The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing – The Magnetic Fields
The Healer/Hip Hop – Erykah Badu
Soul Craft – Bad Brains
I Feel Good – Shirley & Lee
Good Times Rock ‘n’ Roll – The Young Fresh Fellows
Don’t Believe the Hype – Public Enemy
The Once Over Twice – X
Fools in Love/For Your Life – Joe Jackson (live)
TV – Maria Bamford (live comedy)
Lonnie’s Skiffle Party Part 2 – Lonnie Donegan

Kir, Keeper of the Histories, presents - The Bohemian Artifact Wing #1: The Scribblings of the Nuncle

Know, O Polliwogs, that there once existed a time, long before you wasted away your own lives in misplaced worry and fruitless excess, from whence there sprang a race of beings known (somewhat ironically, in some cases) as the Bohemians. Clad in armor forged from the freezing winds of the remote Alaskan frontier, these Bohemians thrived in a time which, coincidentally, ran concurrently in the same general area as a certain recent vice-presidential loser. Whether their paths crossed hers at any given time is lost to the mists of time, and perhaps because of this, it was a time of youthful frivolity, though the blitheness of their manner was balanced overall with a passionate love and extraordinarily strong work ethic regarding the theatre. It was a time of staging fights in malls, skipping school in costume, and swiping towering piles of Pennysavers for no decent reason except to just do it. It was a time of hiding from people nicknamed Larry. It was a time of waving pots and pans at passing cars. Above all, it was a time of lounging on trampolines and rooftops drinking mass quantities of Dr. Pepper and Squirt.

Know, too, that there came to pass a day whereupon the Duke and Boogieman spent an afternoon doodling comics in the ill-fated tincan known to the Ancient Ones as Gibra Tar. It was during this period of complete absorption in the comic art of the primitive that their path was crossed by the third denizen of Gibra Tar, Nuncle, who was then goaded to seat his posterior 'pon the scuffed carpet and draw his little own 'seff. "But I can't draw!" he protested in vain, as he well knew he was almost entirely unable to defend himself against the peer pressure of his erstwhile pals unless engaged in some form of violent and physical Pupae War. "Sure you can!" they pressed him, "anyone can draw!"

And it came to pass from this goading that Nuncle quoth, "I can draw a werewolf." And from his pen burst a very fine werewolf indeed. "It looks sort of like an Eskimo, though." And following the drawing of his very fine Eskimo Werewolf, Nuncle did spew forth from his pwoffel, in succession, a seemingly angry bunny (complete with seemingly angry carrot), a panting hound dog of indeterminate heritage, and some form of demonic walrus with horns atop his head that serve as electrodes that seem to grant the walrus the very powers of Zeus. But Nuncle was not yet done for the afternoon. Then drawing a Tyrannosaurus Rex on his own drawing pad, the Boogieman then pressed Nuncle to try his hand at the art of the dinosaur. Flipping over his 4" x 6" piece of scratch paper, Nuncle knocked out an endearing version of a Rex himself, which pleased Boog greatly.

And though the Eskimo Werewolf would go on to a grand career as the growling and roaring herald of Bohemian birthdays for many years hence, it seemed that this important piece of Bohemian history would have been lost forever were it not so that a certain member of that trio was an unabashed pack-rat. Recent excavation into several layers of compacted notepaper has resurrected this important relic so it may be seen by generations of Bohemians henceforth.

And thus, it is with great pride that I, Kir, the Keeper of the Histories, offer up the Scribblings of the Nuncle as the inaugural piece of the Bohemian Artifact Wing on The Cinema 4 Pylon. It is for the sake of us all that we Learn, Review and Understand.

"Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed upon men..."

UPDATED TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2008 (See note at bottom of post*)

We should all wake up to a blue sky. Or at least the prospect of a blue sky dawning, should the sky happen to be dark with clouds on that day.

I thought the sky was just dark with clouds on Saturday.

I had looked out of our living room window on sporadic occasions throughout Saturday morning, and had just thought it was going to rain at some point. I noticed the wind was whipping up to enormous gusts here and there, and figured we were in for a crazy storm. Into the afternoon, with Jen arising for the day, we configured a plan to take the recycling out and then head to the Cinema City Theatres for a hopefully comedic double feature of Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make A Porno (you'll see no pussyfooting around that title here, pun intended) and Paul Rudd's Role Models. And then some light shopping for household necessities.

And then I stepped outside. There was an acrid taste to the air, and I noticed that the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs, where my view of the street is encumbered by the retaining walls between apartment sections, was suffused with an orange glow. Walking through the courtyard, still unable to see the horizon, while I still thought that what I saw in the sky above was simply a mass of clouds, my nose told me that somewhere, possibly close by, was a fire. And then I turned the corner to the carport and saw the sun. A dim orange bulb poked through the dark mass passing in front of it, bringing light so weak that it could well have been portrayed by an uncarved pumpkin instead. The smokescreen swirling past which I had mistaken for clouds all morning seemed like a curtain only barely pulled upwards to reveal a teasing glimpse of the blue on the horizon which normally would have encased the rest of the sky on a normal happy day. I started to cough from the taste of the air and ran back inside.

Jen and I still endeavored to carry out our plan for the day, and this meant skipping a pass through the local television channels to find out what was going on, and hitting the road. We did, however, have the presence of mind to turn on a news station on the radio, and we find out the whole story: we were surrounded by vast firestorms. The strange post-apocalyptic mood that my initial peek at the day had built for me was now confirmed to not be so much "post" as it were current and dangerous. Freeways had been closed, including the 91, which rolls right past our home on the other side of a massive wall. It is likely, had we not taken care to listen to the radio, that we would have perceived such a fact from the lack of cars that we saw on the normally buzzing thoroughfare.

The mood got even stranger at the recycling center. By then, we had found out that one fire had jumped the 91 freeway about six to seven miles away from us – to our side of the freeway, and about the apartment complex that it was nearly completely decimating at the time, a thought that hit close to home for us in numerous ways. We heard about the fire in the Yorba Linda-Brea area, and my thoughts turned to my friend Lisa, who lives in Brea (and as it turns out, did have to be evacuated from her hillside community over the weekend). We heard about the huge Sylmar fire that destroyed over 500 mobile homes, and was still raging unchecked in the area. By the time we got to turning our bottles and cans in for $18.36, we were sick to death. The wind jostled our recyclables about as we sought to get out of the nauseating smell of smoke in the air as quick as possible. Hearing about the 91 freeway jump, and knowing that the theatre we were planning to attend lied a couple of miles in the direction of the main focus of that fire (in fact, our veterinarian’s office is down there), we decided that spending five hours in a theatre while a firestorm rages outside is probably not the best plan in the world. We decided instead to hit a grocery store really quick and fulfill that portion of our afternoon agenda, grab some In-and-Out and then head home to check the news.

Normally, I don’t watch the news. Not locally, that is. Too many stories about drive-bys and home invasions makes Rik an even edgier, very fearful boy. The fact that the local news seems to intersperse these tales from the dark side with celebrity trivia about Lindsay and Paris makes me hate the local news even more. It’s already irresponsible to fill our lives with an unfocused blanket of fear – why do you have to make it worse with outright idiocy? But now it seemed absolutely vital that I follow the news. Funny how we change so quickly when lives are on the line. I honestly didn’t know what I really should feel in this case. I make a lot of statements about ultimately not caring about society, and not giving two shits about whether the human race will prosper, preferring instead to believe that we are a doomed race due to our own inability to rise above prejudice and corporate greed and outmoded religions and that we will never find a way to right the ship because of this.

And then the Earth really does start to fight back against us, and I suddenly find myself worrying about society. I start to see the cracks in civilization in situations like this, and looking past the news reports of spot looting incidents, instead of using the worst behavior to solidify my standing, I start to concentrate instead on what is good and noble in mankind. I see the bravery and selflessness of the fire crews, and I realize that all is not lost. Even as my mind brings to life wild scenarios of Mad Max-ian behavior as the freeways close and evacuations increase and everyone grows more desperate and fearful, I am comforted by the fact that there are people who fight for the common good and safety.

This did little to convince me that all was well as I retired to bed at midnight with the fires still raging on my television, even more impressively so due to the darkness that surrounded them, wondering if we would be woken up at four in the morning for our own neighborhood evacuation. But it was enough to allow me to actually fall asleep after a time. Rising in the morning, I noticed far more blue sky than the day before, and the sun returned to its normal, unforgiving stare. There was still a massive cloud of smoke filling about a third of the sky to the east, but its darkness has dulled considerably, and the air was slightly clearer in our area as a result. As of right now, this afternoon, most of the news is about the Chino Hills fire, but the situation overall had died down enough that most of the local channels were carrying on with their normal football and religious coverage.

Only the ABC affiliate (Ch. 7) continued on as the day before, covering the tiniest minutiae, though by 11:00 am, my doomsday sensors had died down, and I returned to my normally scheduled program of psychotronic film fare. You know, where the apocalypses are the result of crafty filmmaking, not dried out scrub brush, low humidity and possibly even asshole arsonists. For all I mire myself in these fantasy worlds, never mistake me for one who cancels out reality. I know the difference. If civilization is going to crumble and mankind is to perish, no matter what I might blurt out in a persnickety moment or two, rest assured that I would rather it happen on a movie screen, and not just down the freeway from me. Or especially right at my front door. Or at the homes of my friends.

[*My good friend and co-worker Lisa, who was evacuated from her home for 48 hours this past weekend, was good enough to allow me to post these photos taken near her neighborhood during the firestorm. They were taken by her daughter Stephanie, who is awesome about doing things like this. Thanks, Steph and Lisa!]

Crawling From the Wreckage: Tape #779

Commander USA's Groovie Movies
featuring:
Doctor Dracula (1978)
2 hours, 1989, USA Network w/ads

The movie on this tape is not important. In fact, I was seriously toying with just throwing away Tape #779 because I had no interest in keeping Al Adamson's Doctor Dracula in my collection, and absolutely no attempt to even look up the film for potential DVD purchase had been considered on my part. Certainly the film is such a trainwreck that there is a certain fascination regarding it, as there is with most truly pathetic films, and I will own up that this is why it is in my collection. But paying money for it? Unless there were something else built around it to make it worthwhile, like on an Elvira or MST3K disc, I doubt that I would.

But while I was going through my tapes, I started to wonder why I taped Doctor Dracula in the first place. It was so long ago, and such a while since I had watched Tape #779, that I had quite forgotten its origins. And then I started to wonder if perhaps I might have another old Elvira show on my hands, when I thought that I only had one such film in my collection. I popped the tape in for the first time in perhaps fifteen years or so, and was surprised to find out that it was indeed recorded off of a hosted bad-movie series. Just not the one that I expected.

Somewhere in those fifteen-plus years, I had erased all memory of Commander USA's Groovie Movies from my memories. Granted, I only saw the show a couple of times, but I am usually pretty good at recalling these things. I have the sort of mind that allows me to remember networks, air-days and even time slots for shows I didn't even watch growing up. As a kid, I turned into a walking TV Guide (or at least, the Anchorage Times/Daily News version of it, since TV Guide was not sold in Alaska in those days -- they wouldn't produce a version for our time zone, limited in population as it was), and I could recount nearly any time schedule anytime anyone asked. It was a lousy, accidental talent, and it did not make the leap to the cable age. Nowadays, I don't know when anything is on, but I can still remember all the crap from my youth. And from my twenties as well, including watching junk movie shows on basic cable. But, apparently, not Commander USA's Groovie Movies. At least, until last week...

There are places on the 'Nets where you can find more information on the good ol' Commander, but here's the gist: Commander USA was played by Jim Hendricks from 1985 to 1989 on the USA Network, most often on Saturday mornings, and he hosted an unending stream of the type of movies one is used to seeing if one is predisposed to tuning into shows like Commander USA's Groovie Movies. That sort of person would be me, but apparently I didn't watch him enough, because I actually recall very little of the show. Even watching the Doctor Dracula tape only brought back fleeting memories of seeing a couple of other shows, one of which I believed involved some sort of oddball talent contest.

This particular episode involves the Commander coming up against the supposedly stern Civilion (sic) Review Board, or the CRB as the Commander refers to them. A sign on the inside of the door that leads into the Commander's command center, which is supposedly mired in the basement of a shopping mall, reads "CRB Day" (which extends, in a minor and satirical way, the tradition of themed days on special "club" shows, much in the manner of the Mouseketeers and their "Circus Day" on Thursdays, etc...) After a good deal of cigar-chomping and a handful of quick barbs regarding tax deductions in the superhero, Commander USA introduces us to the CRB, a disparate lot, seemingly made up of characters inspired simply from whatever costume (or lack of) the people playing the characters happened to have laying around. Without going into all of their names, in addition to women playing, respectively, a Greenwich Village artist and a soccer coach, we also meet The Black Whip, a black-clad, cowgirl type with, naturally, a whip; the Alligator Man, a normal guy except for sporting a ridiculous plush gator head, probably won at a particularly cheap carnival game; Jack Sajak, host of TV's "Wheel of Wealth"; and finally, Jason -- yes, Jason... a guy in a hockey mask sporting a neat sport jacket and a huge plastic axe, with which he will torment a bowl of chips over and over through the broadcast any time he is called upon to throw in his two cents.

The Commander uses a slide whistle to get his "Tele-Psychotronic Screen Heat Radiation Shield" open, and when it rattles rather shakily to reveal the movie screen, he exclaims "Holy Cats! I'm gonna have get that tubular guidance system greased pretty quick!" The Commander then gives us a quick preview of Doctor Dracula, the best part of which is when he shows the scene of the nightclub dancer dressed as a butterfly, and shouts "Holy Cats! Imagine what she looked like in her pupae stage!" The Commander, New Jersey tough guy all the way, is not one to shy away from a good dirty suggestion. Later on, once the vampiric dealings begin in the film, the Commander will spend his breakaway moments recreating such scenes from the movie with one of his favorite props, a blow-up love doll. Saturday mornings, yes. Silly, kid show-style set-up and superhero antics, yes. Not necessarily kid stuff though.

Still, it's all fairly harmless, and I did sit through Doctor Dracula again, although I mostly ended up waiting impatiently for the Commander to pop up again. When he sometimes wouldn't pop back up going into a commercial, I found myself rather disappointed. While it is in no way a polished entertainment, there was enough of a humorous tinge -- and features a committed, smooth and rather grittily endearing performance by Hendricks as the Commander -- to make me sad that I didn't watch the show more in those late '80s days. Or at least tape a few more episodes for posterity. Who knows, maybe somewhere in this stack of boxes of old videotapes, I have a couple more episodes that I have forgotten to label properly. It happened this time, it could happen again.

[Also on Tape #779: a haggard copy of Hammer's Dracula Has Risen From the Grave with Christopher Lee, which I have since gained on DVD, and a couple hours of old MGM and Warner Bros. cartoons from off of TNT back when they used to run them throughout the night, each and every night. It includes MGM's Abdul the Bulbul Ameer, so now I have that ancient song (with a slightly different title) running through my skull again. Sometimes, looking back is a dangerous thing. You can get earworms...]

REVIEW... REVIEW... REVIEW... REVIEW... REVIEW... Spout Mavens Disc #15 (and likely, the last): More Shoes... REVIEW... REVIEW... REVIEW... REVIEW...

More Shoes
Director: Lee Kazimir
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

I've been asked to recommend a film either at the top or bottom of this post, which isn't actually a review, though many people still insist on referring to these pieces I construct as reviews. All the same, I have also been asked to place the word "review" into the title. It was rough going, trying to find the exact spot to place that (used erroneously here) noun, but I hope I have at least been able to follow through properly by some small measure on that count.

As for that recommendation... well... let me ask you one small question: Do I know you? Apart from one other person here on Spout, The Working Dead, I don’t personally know any of you. Yes, a handful of people on here have left some very nice comments regarding my writing, and I am sure some of them would make great friends, but I still can’t know someone from just a quick comment or two. It makes it hard to recommend anything if one does not personally know those to whom one is speaking. That the reader can ascertain elements of my personality from my writing is readily apparent, since my style is of a more personal nature, talking about how films affect me more often than actually reviewing them. In the broad sense, though, this is not necessarily true of most “reviewers” or “critics,” who often shoot for a bland sameness in their acceptable styles. Regardless of style or intent, the reader still has it all up on the writer, including myself. They can scan through any number of my posts and get a fairly accurate picture of my emotional range, my psychological bearing, and my critical eye (which, more often than not, one will find those eyes closed). They can read my writing for a short while and get a decent summary of my being. They can determine whether they want to listen to my railings any further, and whether to accept my judgment, good or ill, of the film in discussion.

That’s all fine and well, but while it seems that such a relationship is one on one for the reader – reader meets writer – in fact, it is the complete opposite for the writer. The writer, presumably reaching out to a vast audience, most often has to tailor his words for that entire audience. In doing so, whether he is recommending the object of his review to his readers or not, he is in fact, doing them a disservice unless he is careful to couch his recommendation (or lack of one) in qualifiers: “this is the sort of film this sort of person, or such and such a type of people, would enjoy,” etc. But most critics do not take this extra step. They assume that whole goose-and-gander maxim thing holds true for the critic and their prospective audience: heed my words, you will love/hate this movie, no matter who you are!

Since I only write for myself, and mainly as a therapeutic means, I don’t worry about “recommendations.” Flat out, I don’t do them. I especially don’t since the Eraserhead and Motorama incidents of many years past, in which I didn’t actually recommend those films to anybody, I just suggested to my more or less captive and bored audiences that we watch them, and I have received endless harangues from the less adventurous amongst my friends ever since. The misunderstanding comes from their blanket need to be entertained -- and only entertained -- by movies. This runs counter to my need (though there is still an entertainment factor at play in my heart) to see films that are at least interesting, if not outright mind-expanding. I will not go into details about those films – this is not the time and place – but rest assured that they definitely made me start being far more careful about what films I show or even recommend to individuals. When people in the office ask me to recommend a movie, I generally ask, “What do you like?” If they answer “Oh, I just love Pretty Woman!” or some such other pap (which has happened more than once, I am afraid), I am likely to respond, “Hmm, sorry. Can’t help you.” (I hold back on what I would like to add to that statement: “It’s too late for you…you can’t be helped.”) It’s not that I can’t back up my words or my opinions; I just don’t want to have to hear those people whine once they climb down the other side of the Rik Recommendation Mountain. The world is now made up of people who believe that their time is Oh So Very Precious – the “I can’t believe I wasted 90 minutes of my life on that film” contingent, when they all, to a person, are just as likely to turn right around in an instant for ten straight hours of Nintendo or a night of being soused with their brain-dead buddies. That’s fine – to each his own – but don’t hit me with your personal prejudices concerning films, and your own insecurities with personal time management, when you have asked my opinion in the first place.

Because this has happened time and again, unless I know someone extremely well, I do not recommend any films to anybody. My mother, my father, stepparents, brothers, the Working Dead, Raw Meat, Egg of the Dead – these are people, and their individual artistic tastes and boundaries, that I understand and know fairly well, and I can launch into recommending a film to them with a certain assurance that they will at least give me a measured opinion of their own on its excellence or lack thereof. I am not afraid to recommend titles to them, because I know them. In some cases, too well.

You, generic reader, I don’t know. So, outside of the film which I am purportedly supposed to be discussing here – More Shoes, a first-person documentary about the travels of a would-be filmmaker who definitely takes an offhand recommendation a tad too far, and when I say “too far”, I mean roughly 4000 miles in that direction of limits past the stretching point – outside of the film at hand, I cannot offer up a recommendation to you. What if I were to go all loopy and go, “Wow, the guy in this movie travels across part of the world in search of his artistic sensibilities as a director, so, since he travels, I recommend RV with Robin Williams!” For all I know, you aren’t the type who enjoys overproduced but under-thought hack comedy by people who should all clearly know better, and since you trusted my notion to recommend this film to you, you are going to be pissed off at me. You will be less likely to pay attention to one of my posts the next time around, and all because I told you that “you’d be sure to enjoy this if you enjoyed that.” Making recommendations is a dangerous game if played improperly, and everyone – even the self-aware – does play it improperly. And if both sides are crazy to begin with, no one can ever win. And, of course, there is the chance that I would recommend a really crappy film to everyone on purpose, because that is the sort of guy I am sometimes.

So, in the interest of this “review” still containing some form of recommendation in it, why not do an end-around and concentrate on the film at hand. Would I recommend More Shoes to you? I certainly liked large portions of it, even if it is not completely engrossing and a little too laid back in its approach. I will, perhaps, even watch the film again at some undefined point in the future, regardless of whether I would then have to put up with the director/star’s choice of hideous footwear. In fact, before I watched it again, I would re-title my copy of the film Better Shoes instead of More Shoes, because surely he would have benefited from some well-designed walking shoes rather than the usual slacker’s choice of ugly Birkenstock-style gear.

More Shoes is a film by Lee Kazimir, a young man with a certain small amount of filmmaking experience before this film takes place, who takes the recommendation of a legendarily crazy but brilliant film director, and decides to walk across Europe in search of his filmmaking soul. Werner Herzog once recommended that aspiring filmmakers forego the classroom experience of film school and “make a journey alone, on foot, for a distance of 5,000 kilometers, let's say from Madrid to Kiev.” Herzog, in his usual manner, proffers this advice to any within earshot, and most people will smile, shake their heads and go, “Oh, that Werner! There he goes again,” and then move on. Not Kazimir. He literalizes Herzog’s offhand statement, and hits the road on foot, and not just by making an epic journey on foot, but by actually duplicating the starting and stopping point of Herzog’s tossed-off, imaginary excursion. It's the sort of idea for a film that gets publicity from the sheer audacity of it, and a more cynical person than I would probably point out with a sharper finger that maybe the true impulse behind it was publicity, to get the director noticed and nothing more. There might be a little of that here, but I think its more the approach of a man who is a little frustrated and lost in his would-be talent, and desperate to find if he belongs anywhere, doing anything.

To me, it’s a foolhardy though impressive ambition that drives Kazimir, but my chief problem with such an attempt is that, in my estimation, even if one decided to brave the rigors of such a trip, Herzog was not talking about actually filming such a journey. He was basically suggesting one surefire means in which a novice artist could gain life experience on a massive level before embarking on their filmic career. A travel of considerable size, of perhaps thousands of miles through historic towns and decaying society, would certainly afford the aspiring filmmaker ample opportunity to gain such experience. His life would be threatened on occasion, he would perhaps fall in love or at least lust a number of times, he would see the best and worst of humankind, and he would be given a true sense of man’s place within the construct of nature on this trip. All of the ingredients needed to allow the artistic self to merge with the more physical aspects are readily available for the hapless soul embarking on such a journey. Herzog does suggest his “Madrid to Kiev” trip specifically for an aspiring filmmaker, but he never suggests that such a filmmaker should bring a movie camera along with him down the road. And, really, such a task -- almost a spirit quest, in a way -- would serve the same purpose for a writer, painter or architect as well. Since Kazimir goes into his trip with film experience, it’s no surprise that his survey does take the form of a video, rather than a book, statue or mural. But I still think that such a journey of discovery would be best taken by using the memory directly, not capturing it on a series of tapes.

But, I don't fault Kazimir from wishing to use his particular focus on capturing his journey. While he may doubt whether he wants to continue working in film, and uses this experience more as a litmus test regarding his artistic ambitions, he really has no choice but to film it. After all, if he doesn’t, there is no record of it. While he would perhaps be better suited to simply backpack across Europe like many thousands of other kids of his relative age, if one is a filmmaker, why not film it?

My mother was recently in town, and she brought along her new digital camera, with which she proceeded to take hundreds of pictures while she stayed in Anaheim. She is on an epic journey herself -- by fifth-wheeler, not by foot -- on the first real vacation she has taken in twenty years or so. Naturally, she wants to capture everything she can on film. But there is no actual artistic impulse involved, at least none that is apparent to her own child. It is merely another person doing what we all do through life: collecting keepsakes, mementos, souvenirs... whether through a purchase from a gift counter or through the lens of a camera, we all tend to do this when we travel. In this sense, what Kazimir has collected on his travels on his camera matters no more than the photos taken by a 62-year old mother on a seriously long road trip that zigzags back and forth across the U.S.

In fact, if anything, in the same way that no one wants to be trapped on a couch while a relative makes them look at photo album after photo album of blasts from that relative's past, where every third person in each photo has to be explained at great length for the (usually stiffly posed) photos to make any sense at all, so too can More Shoes seem a bit like a chore at times. We are basically shown scene after scene, with little in the way of explanation, and with what little explanation we are given sometimes ruining what little suspense does build up along the way. At times, I wish there were no narration at all, and would prefer to almost just bump along silently through the film, enjoying each turn around the corner on my own judgment. But, at other times, I wanted to know more about the people I met in Kazimir's video journal, and the narration would fail me in that regard.

And still, I never lost full interest in his journey across a multitude of countries. There is enough here to sustain one between Madrid and Kiev, even if Kazimir himself starts to lose faith in his abilities along the way. This viewer really did start to feel for him, even if Kazimir brought it all on himself. I'm one of those "I need a vacation from vacation" folks, so I couldn't even begin to imagine what Kazimir was feeling in the waning moments of his walk. Or maybe I could, since he decided to film all of it, instead of just keeping it to himself. Like a collection of snapshots that really require a livelier narrator than someone's 82 year-old aunt to be more than just mildly interesting.

So, would I recommend More Shoes? Damn it. I’ve already told you – I don’t know you… but here's a recommendation I can give to everyone: Don't Follow Recommendations. Make your journey through the history of the cinema a more organic one. Start out trying twenty films from every single genre, no matter how much you think they are going to suck. Watch a film because one actor is in it, and then choose another actor in that film, and watch your next film with that actor in it, and so on. Open a film guide, drop your finger in, and then watch the collected works of whatever director the tip of your widdle nubbin lands upon. Do what I have done twice in my life and watch a thousand films in one calendar year (that's averaging just under two and three-quarters films a day, and its actually easier to do than one might think). Pick a book on a specific genre of film and then attempt to watch every film in alphabetical order. Or do what I do currently, and just check out any film that catches your fancy. Don't over-think it... just watch, try to enjoy yourself, and well after the film is done, ponder on how watching that film affected you, good or bad. Never... ever... worry about how much money a movie made at the box office. Unless you are a movie producer, box office means nada... And most of all, I recommend that you don't listen to strangers. Listen to people that you know, respect or trust. Value their opinions, even if you don't agree with them, and try to understand their point of view even if it skews 180 degrees away from yours. If they liked a film and you didn't, discuss it with them and find out what it is in their life that makes them be so incorrect -- er, I mean, different.

So, there you go. A recommendation section in this non-review that has "Review" in the title I am sorry that it isn't actually a film recommendation, but if one is required, I recommend everyone watch Nightdreams, directed by F.X. Pope. It's hard to find, but it has Wall of Voodoo performing a genuinely spooky version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire while lipstick lesbian cowgirls act badly on purpose, and yet still manage to act badly for real. It's the greatest scene ever filmed, and I am only half joking.

What's that? You don't enjoy hardcore flicks, even if Nightdreams is a relatively big-budget attempt at genre crossover, with some very interestingly staged, surreal sequences, including one involving a housewife becoming intimately involved with a giant Cream of Wheat box while a piece of toast plays Old Man River on a saxophone?

Well, that's the way it is with recommendations: you never know what you are going to get, especially if you don't know the person doing the recommending. You don't know me and I don't know you...

...and now I probably never will. Goodbye, Spout...

Crawling from the Wreckage: Prepending a Prologue?

You will find below, my friends, the contents of a post that I wrote just shy of a year ago, which I was using as a prologue to a new project, which I was then supposedly undertaking as part of my attempt to go through the massive pile of garbage that had been dumped into our abode just a month before. The attempt has continued through the year that followed, but the project went astray. The point was to go through what remained of my old VHS collection, cherry-pick a handful of interesting tapes that I had recorded years ago, and then re-watch them, sometimes for the first time in eons.

Circumstances have changed, the pile has lessened somewhat, and it just happens to turn out that I am now at that juncture where it is imperative that I do such a project. I am currently going through each tape and determining that which is now on disc since I moved three years ago, and that which stubbornly remains obscure or missing to this erstwhile DVD aficionado. We would like to get a few more of these boxes out of here -- and so my winter project of last year is now the winter project of this one! But, before I launch into a series of Crawling From the Wreckage posts detailing my misadventures while tripping through these taped nightmares, I figured that allowing one to catch up with the previous lead-in post would be, in the words of the Elephant Man in the pages of the National Lampoon, "devilishly apropos." Some things must be updated, however... Evil Roy Slade has arrived on disc since the initial post. Wheww! That's one I thought would never come out...

Herewith, the prologue:

Think you can do a better job?

Really, I invite you to come over and sift through 40-odd years of assorted fooferaw and folderol, all jammed into a one-bedroom and offset-den apartment -- keeping in mind the limited monetary range when planning such an epic trek through one person's lifetime of nonsensical ratpacking -- and work out a more efficient means of gaining some sort of control over the avalanche. By the second day, the two thousand CDs were already stacked and alphabetized (and yet, with no shelving on which to place them); a month later, all 200 boxes had been at least opened in some manner, half of them unpacked and obliterated, the contents sorted and placed on what shelving I did have going into the project. Now, three new cheapie bookcases from Ikea will cut us a decent swath in which to place our annual Xmas fetishism altar; the bookcases are the sort of things we can easily excise or take down should we ever find the extra bucks to gain the sort of furniture that actual adults tend to purchase.

With all the stacking and unpacking and sorting and contorting came the realization that, even with the massive selling, swapping and trashing of a couple thousand videotapes (supposedly to signify my complete transition into a DVD-aholic), I still had several boxes of the things taking up valuable floorspace. The first step was easy: sort through them and eliminate any tapes which have been released onto DVD in the two-and-a-half years subsequent to my packing these tapes into boxes. This actually cut the amount of tapes down to half, but please, close and personal friends of Rik who became beneficiaries of my last Great Tape Upheaval -- please, please don't get excited about numerous tapes showing up under Christmas trees. The tapes to which I am referring are of the personally recorded ilk, and many of them are not of the greatest quality. They just happened to have items on them with which I simply could not part at the time.

And if you wonder why I would take such pains to transport hundreds of videotapes thousands of miles, then you just don't know me very well. It is the obscurity of some of the films in my collection that provides my very interest in them. I would no sooner get rid of my ancient and well-loved WTBS showing of John Astin's Evil Roy Slade than I would my own immediate family. Of course, for a while now, this tape was just as far away as some of that immediate family, but now it is here, and it is most decidedly not being trashed. But its reappearance into my life did pose this question to myself internally: just why am I hanging onto some of these films?

Thus begins a new regular feature on the Pylon -- Crawling From the Wreckage -- as I scour these long-lost tapes and find out exactly what is on each one that makes me not wish to depart with them. You might not care, but that is not the point. Really, it's just another blazingly transparent excuse for me to write about a bunch of obscure movies. (Not that I ever truly need an excuse to do this...)

So, come on over and get cranking on your new and better plan to sort through all of my crap. I will welcome your presence with much appreciation... and the key to the city... and fireworks... and a parade... and a laurel... and hardy handshake... and whatnot. After the celebration, dive right into doing "that better job." After all, I've got writing to do...

Chapter 427: In which our hero whines and whines about something that no one put a gun to his head to do (it may have been a better option, though...)

For two of the last three Halloweens – the count of said holiday celebrations, up until last Friday, since I moved here in 2005 – I have spent my evening hours in the comforting arms of Disneyland. Not having my old network of friends here has greatly reduced my chances of hitting a Halloween party, and thus, costuming has become a non-factor and I have fallen into merely going to some appropriately decorated environs and enjoying the evening riding some rides, watching the parade, looking at pumpkins and getting a kick out of the variety of costumes on display from the younger denizens of the park. I usually make a goal of riding a full set of what I call “the skeleton rides” – Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, the Jungle Cruise, the Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – any ride that has a skeleton or at least a skull on display, of the three-dimensional variety only, somewhere in the attraction (Peter Pan’s Flight does not count, even though the ol’ skull-and-crossbones is readily apparent on some of the flying ships). I also attempt to purchase the season’s first gingerbread cookies at one of the candy shops, of the most excellent type that make my knees buckle as I walk whilst devouring them. I don’t ask much, just a handful of rides and some pleasant atmosphere, and I am good to go. It has proven on the previous two trips to be a very relaxing experience, of the sort of fall day I never really got to taste when in Alaska, where fall is almost an afterthought at times, since the initial downfall of snow that signifies winter seems to actually beat autumn to the punch on occasion.

Last Friday, on Halloween 2008, jumpy and almost bursting to be let out of work, I went to Disneyland.

It was the worst three hours I have ever spent at the park.

I’ve been at the park when it has been pouring rain through driving winds, to the point where everyone else in the place is scrambling frantically to be let out of the park, while diving under canopies or leaping inside shops for fear of even getting hit by a single drop of water, and I have been absolutely fine. It just meant less people in line for the rides to me. A little rain, even a shitload of rain, is nothing to me. I’ve also been at the park with a sinus cold and a rising fever, and with my head threatening to cleave itself in twain in order to relieve itself of the immense pressure building up behind my eyes, and while perhaps after a bit I did retire to a hotel room to rest up, or perhaps even caught myself napping on one or two rides due to my illness, I still managed to keep a smile going while bopping from attraction to attraction. I’ve even limped through an entire two days of park time while my knee filled up with fluid after wrenching it once more stepping off a ride, and still had a terrific time at the park level, even while biting my lip from the pain. I can take a lot at or into Disneyland in order for myself to simply enjoy Disneyland.

I lost it on Halloween 2008.

Here is a partial list of what went awry when Jen and I went to the park that evening with my erstwhile working companion Raw Meat and his girlfriend Raw-Chel. Keep in mind that this is an extraordinarily superficial list, of the sort that only someone who has been immensely spoiled rotten as regards the Disneyland experience can put together. The point is, I turned into a whiny baby that evening, perhaps not fully in front of everybody, but it certainly led to my wearing a full-on monster-sized pout throughout much of the evening.

1. THE WEATHER: It was reported throughout the week, and all through the day, that the weather on Halloween in Anaheim was going to be windy and rainy. Windy and rainy, everywhere you looked. The day, at 6:00 am, may have started out that way, but it was pretty much gone by the time we left for the park at 4:00 pm. Just in case, with dark clouds scattered throughout the skies threatening more of the same, it seemed like we were in for it. This would have been fine with me (note my previous mention of enjoying rain at the park). When it rains at Disneyland, most people turn into pussies. The tourists understandably split for the hotels or restaurants (or both), and the less hardy locals, which is most of them, hightail it for home. This leaves myself and Jen and a group of the more waterproof amongst us to bop on and off the rides all we wish. We were actually hoping this might be the case, and I wore a light jacket and my Jack Skellington scarf just in case. It proved to be too much, as the weather actually got warmer and warmer into the evening (perhaps due to the Santa Ana winds), and the fact that the crowd on the Disney streets kept swelling due to the rides constantly breaking down, did not help the temperature factor either. I sweated through most of the night, even after removing the jacket and scarf early into the proceedings.

2. THE RIDES BREAKING DOWN: Oh, I am sorry. Didn’t I just mention that the rides kept breaking down? Well, they did, and always at the worst times, too. We grabbed a Fastpass for Indiana Jones once we got inside the park, and were supposed to go back between 6:40 and 7:40 pm to hop on it. We rode Pirates (and not without incident; more later), but Haunted Mansion was broken down on the worst of all possible nights. So we got dinner (which was the only thing that went well) and then went to Mr. Jones. Our Fastpasses got us to within about forty feet of actually getting on the damn thing – and then they told everyone to evacuate the building as soon as possible! Everyone inside the ride had to make the massive trek back to the front, hundreds of people all filing out, and every one of them grouching about it as they did so, including us. A fire department official entered the ride as we had just left it, but we never found out what happened. So we made our way back to the Haunted Mansion, which by then was open again, but so many people had been waiting to ride it, that the line rolled out through the front gates and over towards the New Orleans train station. The sign flashed a full 50 minutes wait to the impatient reader (composed, this time, of normally patient me), and so we decided to find easier prey. We first walked around the corner to check out the candy store and were met with a massive wave of people departing Splash Mountain, which had also just broken down, and wouldn’t be back up again, they announced, for at least another hour. All of the disappointed riders of that attraction poured into the streets of New Orleans Square and into the lines of the all the other rides in the area, which made everything hotter and more crowded. We hit Big Thunder, and met a longer than usual double set of lines there, but managed to get through it relatively quickly, all things considered. We took another pass at the Mansion, but the line was even longer than before, and while the sign still said 50 minutes wait time, we knew from a glance that it was even worse than that. With the prospect of getting out of the park before the crowds blocked Main Street for the impending fireworks, we decided to just catch the train at New Orleans station and get the flock out of there. Thankfully, even though we had to wait for two trains, at least they were running on time.

3. THE CANDY STORE: So, you go over to the candy store in Critter Country to get away from the whining crowd streaming out of Splash Mountain, and you figure if everything else is going to go wrong this evening, certainly you will at least be able to continue one of your new Halloween traditions, and make off if the most delicious gingerbread man cookie (with Mickey Mouse ears dipped in chocolate) in the world. Alas, it was not to be. Not a cookie in sight, not even an empty tray where they used to live earlier in the evening. I had gotten one of the cookies a couple weeks earlier when I took my parents to California Adventure, so I knew that the gingerbread had hit the park for the season. But nothing in sight. That was nearly the breaking point. I sat down on the rabbit bench outside of Pooh Corner and pouted briefly, in much the same style I did back when my friends used to call me “Tigger” (before the name was stolen away from me by a mustachioed weirdo). Following that, we marched over to the Mansion, where, as I said before, 50 minutes turned to a possible 75, and we left, sans gingerbread, sans happiness in the Happiest Place on Earth. Even seeing Primeval World on the train did little to quell my anguish. Oh, tortured soul…!

4. THAT FAMOUS PIRATE RIDE: The less said here, the better. The ride was fine, but a relentless onslaught of flash photography in the front of our boat caused one of our party to stand up while we floated through the pirate caves, and then to yell quite sharply at the clicking moron to knock it off. There was an attempt to calm down our party member, then I had to tug on their shirt to get them to sit down, and then Jen spent the rest of the ride fretting about being met at the ride’s end by a suit or a security person, who would then lead us out the park. Jen was afraid, too, that said behavior would come back at her in a more corporate form, as she was the one who signed we troublemakers into the park. As Pirates was the first thing we did, it definitely set a certain mood of anxiety and frustration over the rest of the evening.

5. THE FIREWORKS: I wanted to see the fireworks, but we had to get out of there. I briefly mused that perhaps it was best to not stay for the ‘works anyway, since our luck that evening would probably demand that the event be cancelled. We were gone by nine, and honestly, I am not sure if they ever did go off. Raw Meat says he didn’t hear them from his apartment, and he usually can, as can we, though Jen and I went to the store to find something to cheer us up.

The cure that evening for me? I nearly righted the ship by watching three movies – The Devil Bat with Bela Lugosi, and a pair of Herschell Gordon Lewis gorefests, Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs – before retiring for bed. I finally got some semblance of a decent Halloween, but I had to meet it on my own terms, and on my own field of battle. And man, did I get whiny. Spoiled rotten? You bet. Spoiled on the Halloween Disney experience from now on, and time to seek out new party opportunities instead? Only time will tell. I’ve got a whole year to figure it out.