Surveying the Battlefield...

"My dad says I'M the crazy one..." – The Blueberry, October 1, 2016

Photo Op at the 2016 Finger Monster Convention...

Mr. Mixtape-ptlk, Track #1: "Frankenstein Walk" by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller (1969)

"I don't know what I'm tryin' to do! I'm a monster!"

I miss making mixtapes.

Mixtapes. Mix CDs. Whatever you want to call them (really, whatever I want to call them is what matters here...), I miss them. Back when practically every car in existence had a cassette player of some form – some holdouts even still played eight-tracks (look it up, youngsters) – most of my friends had players that played standard audiocassettes. Besides 33-1/3 rpm stereo LPs, 45 rpm 7" singles, and the radio (itself always a hit or miss proposition as far as variety was concerned), our standard form of non-direct musical expression (as opposed to picking up a guitar and singing your own song) was being able to figuratively cut and paste together collections of our favorite songs on cassette. 

Sometimes this was for our own amusement, but often it was for the benefit of others... or what we perceived as being for the benefit of others. For me, I was constantly upset that others in my ever-widening circle were not listening to the things that I thought were worthwhile, and so, in my rampant snobbishness, I would make tapes of songs that I thought they should be exposed to, without any real consideration as to whether they actually might like the songs in the playlist or not.

My mixtapes were often cued to how I was feeling about life in general at the time, and could be either maudlin enough to make you take up hard drugs or maddeningly overenthusiastic enough to borrow the syringe you were planning to use for those drugs and just simply stab your own eyes out with it. And I have no real way of knowing if any of the tapes that I gave various people in my life were ever actually played or if they just told me they liked it. And yes, I did do the occasional mixtape that had romantic longing attached to it, though there were also a couple of cases where there was no such notion attached where it was totally misconstrued as such.

BUT GETTING TO HALLOWEEN...

Yes, this is supposed to be a holiday-themed post, and assuredly, that is my true purpose here, despite my semi-nostalgic rambling to this point. Most of my mixtape power actually went into creating a pair of long-running series of tapes that I would assemble at two separate points each year that I would give to my closest friends. At Halloween and at Christmas time, it was so very important to me to throw together as many appropriate songs, comedy sketches, and whatever else I could find in time to hand them to my friends for seasonal enjoyment. These were not made and given in lieu of actual presents at any time. They were a pre-seasonal appetizer or supplement; an apéritif to prepare the spirits for the particular season if you will.

I delighted in creating these tapes, but stopped after several years. Somewhere well into the compact disc age, I created a single CD titled Vel-come to Boo-hemia! which was meant to be the start of a new series of Halloween discs. But it never went beyond that first disc. [If you want to read more about the story of that disc or see the artwork I created for it, click here.]

Of course, we are now pretty much past the CD age, though they are still around us everywhere. Everything is ultra-digital now, where we can't even understand the use of external media. What? It doesn't just play automatically on my computer the second I buy it? I have to slide what into where? Forget it! (Unless it's porn...) I have often thought about starting to build mixtapes again. Yes, I know that technically, if there is no tape, then there can't be a mixtape. But my reaction to the word "mix" on its own is the same that most people have to the word "moist"... utter revulsion. It needs to be appended with "tape" at the end to sound right, especially when you are talking about a collection of songs that you mean for someone else to give a listen. But I just haven't found the right means to do it, especially since digital rights are such a huge issue now. Things like Soundcloud seem cool to build a mixtape (see, I said it, and its fine), but they also seem to be pretty snippy about actual ownership of said titles.

What I am not going to do is provide songs for download, because that is just not my style. For now, I will just have to be content with pointing you in the right direction for the songs that I am going to post this month. C'mon... you are a resilient lot. You've had a computer how long? You know how to do what you need to do to have what you wish to have. If I can find a piece of music on YouTube and provide a link to the clip, it's all you from there on out. Do whatever you wish. My main purpose is to talk about some goofy and/or cool songs that have to something to do, however peripherally, with the Halloween season or horror movies or scary stuff.

Track #1: FRANKENSTEIN WALK

With that in mind, here is Track 1 for a collection that I have decided to title Mr. Mixtape-ptlk. (If you don't get the reference, you need to find a friend with comic book leanings, I guess. That person can probably help you with the pronunciation as well.)

Frankenstein Walk is about as silly and dopey as Halloween-oriented music can get (though I can think of a great many silly and dopey Halloween songs). It's a novelty version of an R&B groover, a booty-shaker by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller, a Memphis session trumpeter and sideman who also led a lot of bands in his time. He played with a lot of blues and R&B greats like B.B. King, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Etta James. (Though he has been dead since 1987, Miller has, according to AllMusic.com, a trumpet credit on the soundtrack album for Suicide Squad. For the life of me, I cannot figure out which song on the soundtrack listing he may have performed on, but judging from the list, it could be a sample on one of the more modern songs. I am not going to take the time to figure it out however.)

Apart from his sideman work, Miller also released a handful of singles in the '60s and '70s under his own name. They are all pretty standard for the day but enjoyable (there seems to be no single collection of his songs that I can find), but Frankenstein Walk is the track that I really enjoy. From the moment that I first heard the opening twenty seconds of the song while listening on WFMU a few years back, I fell head over heels for Frankenstein Walk.

The opening is hilarious and completely unexpected. Over a bubbling groove, an unidentified female voice yells into the mike, "Hey, Frankenstein, baby!" A second voice, that of Gene "Bowlegs" Miller, plays the part of Frankenstein, though we learn really quick that he is the not the mad doctor of ill scientific repute. He replies gruffly, "What'chu want, woman?" and she asks, "What are you tryin' to do, baby?"

And this is the point where great loves are made. It floored me when I first heard it. Frankenstein's response is probably about as honest a thing as any woman would want her man to admit: "I don't know what I'm tryin' to do! I'm a monster!"

If I could go back to about 47, maybe 48 key moments in my life where if I had just said these words – "I don't know what I'm tryin' to do! I'm a monster!" – each of those key moments might have gone so much smoother than they actually did. They might have led to happiness and trying to do a silly monster dance. Instead, they led to arguments and crying and anger and mistrust and sadness and... yes, even divorce. All I needed to admit was that my very monstrousness led me to act like a buffoon.

Back to the song, where the girl is accusing Frankenstein of some shoddy dance moves. She tells him she saw him trying to do the boogaloo and the Funky Broadway, but he is incredulous at these accusations (and believe me, he won't get over it either). "Boogaloo? Funky Broadway? Look here, I got my own thing!" Frankenstein, as played by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller, is a fast talker but a terrible giver of dance instructions. Still, that is not going to stop him, otherwise we wouldn't have a song to play. He likes to punctuate each of his lines with little asides like "Dig it!" and "Look here!" and sometimes even longer ones. He leads us into the actual lyrics by going a little crazy, announcing "And I'm gonna show ya how to do it! Ha ha ha! Dig this here! Look here!"

"There's a new dance comin' your way!
It's not the boogaloo or the Funky Broadway!
It's a dance that anyone can do,
so, hold it right there, 
and give me a minute or two.

(Look here!)
We gonna do a little thing!
(Uh huh!)
It's not gonna be the shingaling!
(Dig this!)
So if you just wait and let me talk,
the name of this dance is the Frankenstein Walk

[Chorus]
I know your gonna like this one
and we all can have some fun
doin' the Frankenstein Walk!
(Dig it, baby!)
Doin' the Frankenstein Walk!

(Let me show ya how to do it. Dig this here right here.)
Put your right arm out
(That's good. Do it right there.)
and your left one too.
(That's it. Right there.)
Just stand there for a minute
(Now, hold it.)
And I'll tell you what else to do.
(Cool it right there.)

Now, put out your right leg!
(Yes!)
Now, put out your left one!
(Ha ha ha! Like that!)
Now we get ready,
(Ha! Looky here!)
we gonna have some fun!
(I told ya, look here!)

[Chorus]
I know your gonna like this one
(Ha ha! Look here!)
and we all gonna have some fun
doin' the Frankenstein Walk!
(Dig it!)
Doin' the Frankenstein Walk!
(Now cool it right there. I gonna tell how to ride it! Dig it.)

Now, let your right and left arms a-stretch out,
(That's it.)
and your right and left leg too.
(Dig!)
Here are my following instructions
and they're as simple as one and two.
Just do the Frankenstein, baby!
(Look here!)
Just walk like that little ol' monster!
Just do the boogaloo if ya want to. Looky here, baby. How ya like that?"

After pretty much spending two minutes telling us to just stick out our arms and legs and then walk forward stiffly – along with making sure that we dig it and look wherever he tells us to look – Frankenstein is interrupted by the girl from the beginning of the song. She runs in and tells him, "Franky! That's a gas! Man, that's cute!" His immediate response is to ask her, "What about the Wolfman? Have you seen the Wolfman? What about Batman?" But she digs the dance he is doing, pretty much drowning him out by saying, "Man thats the Frankenstein Walk, baby! Just the Frankenstein Walk! C'mon lets go baby. You're a Frankenstein!"

And that's it. That's the Frankenstein Walk. A gloriously silly time. A lot of Gene Miller's other songs seem to be dance-oriented, including one song called "It's Bump Time" that needs no further introduction. I wouldn't mind having a mix of his collected singles, but there doesn't seem to be much call for one either given that it doesn't appear he had any major hits. But Frankenstein Walk is just calling out for someone to set it to animation, and it would be groovy to see that in the future.

Or maybe I will have to do that.

RTJ

[Keep checking back here throughout my Countdown to Halloween month on The Cinema 4 Pylon for more fun tracks. You can also follow my choices for this mix throughout the month by visiting my Mr. Mixtape-ptlk YouTube playlist by clicking here.]

Meanwhile, Other "Countdown to Halloween" Fun in Cinema 4 Land...

Just a couple quick notices to make you aware of posts and articles on my other sites that tie into the launch of Countdown to Halloween this morning:

On CINEMA 4: CEL BLOC:

Spooks (1930)

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit faces off against a parody version of the Phantom of the Opera as he tries to protect his girlfriend Kitty in Walter Lantz's 1930 short, Spooks. There might even be a strange swipe at Walt Disney in the film in the use of a mouse (or a series of mice) that looks exactly like Mickey Mouse, the character that Disney and Ub Iwerks created to replace the stolen Oswald. The first of seven Halloween-oriented cartoons that will be featured throughout the month of October on Cinema 4: Cel Bloc.

On THE SHARK FILM OFFICE:

The Munsters in "Marineland Carnival" Promo (1965)

CBS did some cross-promotion and had the stars of one of their primetime hits take part in an early television special built around Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verdes, California. Naturally, for me to discuss such a thing on the The Shark Film Office, sharks need to be involved in some small way, yes? Well, sort of almost maybe. Find out how through the link above.

RTJ

Countdown to Halloween 2016: Pylon-Style!

Even Totoro is ready for Halloween, resplendent
and relaxed in my Baby Monster Beanie...

Holy crap, I made it another year...

Not that I was expecting to go anywhere, but with everything that has happened to me over the past eighteen months or so, just being able to take part in another Countdown to Halloween has to be seen as some form of accomplishment.

That's right... once again, I am taking part in the annual Countdown to Halloween festivities. That's not just any ol' "taking part in Halloween" thing. That's easy to do, and anyone with sense and the spirit of fun does so each and every October. And I suppose just about anyone can take part in Countdown to Halloween as well. There are only two prerequisites, and most people really only need to fulfill one of them, while a far lesser number would need to fulfill both of them (though all are invited to engage in the second one, of course). 

The first prerequisite is to have access to the internet, which everyone but a Luddite would today. Computer, phone, TV, gaming system, tablet, school... most people have access. Visit http://countdowntohalloween.blogspot.com/ to see a list of all the websites and blogs that are taking part in Countdown to Halloween this year. Once there, you click on the sites that sound interesting to you, and check out everything they have to say to you or show you regarding the Halloween season or other topics tangentially related to the season.

The second prerequisite, and the reason why I am here, is having a blog or website that you are planning to devote to regular or semi-regular posts on whatever topic strikes your fancy that you believe followers of Halloween fun and frivolity might like to stop and check out for a few minutes during their time on the worldwide web. As I said, you really only need to fulfill one of these steps, but in my case, I like to post on my own sites and check out what others have to offer during the month. 

I have a lot of surprises in store this month, none of which I will give away here, but I do like to provide variety. Rest assured, if you are into monster movies, cartoons, toys, trading cards, sharks, and Halloween or horror-oriented books and music, you will find a little bit of each (and sometimes a lot) written about here on The Cinema 4 Pylon, and on its sister blog, Cinema 4: Cel Bloc. Both blogs are full participants in this year's Countdown, though the Cel Bloc will only update every five or six days, while the Pylon will try to stick to a mostly daily schedule through most of the month.

But there's more! I will also have sporadic posts on my other sites as well: The Shark Film Office and V for Voluminous, C for Cinema. However, links to any articles on those sites that might be "holiday relevant" will be posted here on the Pylon first, so you don't have to go crazy checking out so many different sites every day.

One other shout-out that I should make. My writing partner, Aaron Lowe, will have his blog, Working Dead Productions, involved in the Countdown to Halloween as well. Together, though, we recently created a website titled We Who Watch Behind the Rows: Stephen King in Print and on Film. For the Countdown, we have decided to do a concentration on King's first officially published novel (under his own name), Carrie, and after we finish discussing the novel, we will then turn our attention to several posts reviewing the four film adaptations derived from that work. To read our introduction announcement to this project, "Carrie" On, My Wayward Sons here.

I hope that you take some time to bounce around my sites while you are here, and if you like what you see and read, please return any time. Otherwise, Happy Halloween!

RTJ

A Temporary Setback...

As concerned as I am about crossing every "t" and dotting every "i" where my actual work output is concerned, I am absolutely a nightmare when it comes to the matter of handling the minutiae and behind the scenes details of my personal business.

I refuse to go into the "who" as this is nobody's fault but my own, but my inability to follow through with the proper paperwork (all of it remarkably simple) when politely requested has forced me to learn a hard lesson today in keeping someone's trust (in a business sense). And, thus, also lose the position I was to have with them for at least the next couple of months.

This is going to slow the personal roll that I had been on for a good six weeks (plus) by this point. While I have caused no actual harm to anyone but myself, it is going to be hard to smile for a few days.

He Built It, and We Came Around...

Since the majority of my friends are of the theatre world, I imagine many will post on Facebook and other social media sites today about the death of Edward Albee, especially since so many of them have had the chance to meet him over the years (as did I). Since I am less theatrically bound (and not to put the man's monumental talent and staggering work down at all), Albee didn't mean quite as much to me as did author W.P. Kinsella, who also died on Friday.

A nice chunk of space on my bookshelves is still devoted to Kinsella's works, which of course include his novel Shoeless Joe, from which the film Field of Dreams was adapted. While I do have a couple of volumes of his short stories based around Native American reservation settings (such as Dance Me Outside, itself turned into a film in the '90s, and The Fencepost Chronicles, each excellent in their own right), most of my Kinsella collection is comprised of his numerous books about baseball.

Naturally, this was the key component to my attraction to Kinsella, that there wasn't just a major fiction writer whose voice actually appealed to me in an immediate sense back then, but that he was as obsessed with the game as I was at the time.

My personal favorite remains Shoeless Joe. While I went nutso over the movie version when it was released (mainly because I had already read the novel), I still recommend the book over the film simply because the writer that the Ray Kinsella character engages in his mission in the book is actually J.D. Salinger, and not the fictionalized knockoff (for legal reasons) played by James Earl Jones in the film. It adds an extra level to the story that the whitewashing for the film negates.

But a close second for me is The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, which is even more deeply immersed in a state of magic realism than Shoeless Joe and manages to work in the 1908 Chicago Cubs, a mythical minor league system, a 2000-inning baseball game, and Leonardo da Vinci at the same time. It's a pretty remarkable book in its own right. And you also can't lose with his short story collection, The Thrill of the Grass.

Never got to meet you, W.P., but I am going to miss you.

[Postscript 9/22/16: As it turned out, very few of my friends posted about Mr. Albee.]