I KISS THE SCREEN

TERRIBLE FEELINGS

2011-11-09T21:22:00.003-05:00

Perhaps some of you have already heard about the band TERRIBLE FEELINGS. I wanted to share some (particularly extreme) thoughts on the group after seeing them when Night Birds was in Europe because I simply couldn’t stop thinking about how great they were. When I got home (now weeks ago) I wrote what you see below. I honestly read it back to myself and laughed - it didn’t seem possible that I could be accurate, so I decided to wait a bit and re-read it, thinking my perspective might change from such an extremity. Well, it didn’t! Read the following and check this band out online. I have 2 of their three 7”s here at Co-Op 87 if anybody needs the real thing …

From the UK to Germany to France and back and more - Night Birds’ 2011 European tour was laced with cool new bands. For some reason though, the band I heard about the most was a new Swedish group - TERRIBLE FEELINGS. “Angst-ridden power-pop”, “gloomy; with great energy”, “weird, not like anything else” … it seemed like people couldn’t pin down an exact (or even helpful) description for the band, and after hearing how great they were so many times, I honestly wasn’t even sure I was going to like them. Being wrong was never more delightful. Night Birds’ last gig in Europe was in Bremen, Germany with none other than Terrible Feelings. As they hung out before the show, shot the shit with the other Night Birds, and set up they all seemed perfectly sweet and well-mannered.

Then, about to get into their set, they started to test their gear a bit … Generally, I’m not into too many guitar sounds I hear live. I don’t think of myself as a snob, but I really do lean strongly to the side of treble-soaked reverberating wackiness over anything that’s bound to come out of a Marshall stack. So, when Anton of Terrible Feelings started filling the room with his wildly echoing double Music Man amp set up, I almost dropped my drink.

THEN, they actually started playing.

It was like someone set a wild animal loose in the room. Individually, the band were trapped in their own worlds of manic but perfect performance - the rhythm section of Andy and Willy pounding away a solid foundation in an educated Garage rock fashion, leaving space above for Anton (who quite seriously is one of the greatest guitar players I’ve ever seen) to weave rabid, reverberated lines of melancholy psychedelic surf-pop all around it. And Manuela - dear God! A possessed vocalist of the highest order, at once magnetically sexual and legitimately terrifying, she can crawl and slide with the best of them. I couldn’t help but think of early prime-era Debbie Harry or Iggy. And if you’re lucky enough to catch her eye, you can see the hot-orange glow of Hell in her gaze. This is a band without fear, and everyone in the room was wrapped around their little finger for it.

Some bands can ensnare an audience with antics. Some with politics, and some with cute outfits. Rare today is the group that actually mesmerizes an audience with the base elements of pure, white-hot Rock N’ Roll - which to me means the perfect blend of one thick stream sheer unbridled live ferocity and another of naturally brilliant song writing craft. And that’s what Terrible Feelings are, Rock N’ Roll; in the truest sense of the term. Meaning that while Terrible Feelings are instantly classic and widely appealing in their energy and ability in the way that the true greats of music were, they’re also totally (shockingly) fresh. The rather drastic comparisons that come to mind are band like the RAMONES - blending their obsessions with junk culture with primitive performance and marrying love of Glam and misfit-rock to the wide-eyed simplicity of 50’s and 60’s AM top 40. Or NIRVANA, who took all that the Ramones showed them, threw in the heaviness of Black Sabbath; filtered it through inescapable familiarity with the best music on the 1980’s underground from Scratch Acid to the Wipers to the Pixies and laced it with the pained scrawlings of a suicidal teenager’s notebooks for lyrics.

TERRIBLE FEELINGS’ music displays knowledge of every worthwhile shred of music that preceded it and basically sounds like none of it. Fucking rare.

I too will offer a confounding personal description of a band that I’d actually feel comfortable calling “THE NEXT BIG THING” (a phrase that’s really become antiquated beyond belief, but still - if there’s any justice or hope left in this cold, cruel world TERRIBLE FEELINGS will end up rich and famous beyond belief). To these fairly dumb American ears I hear kinship to the tough, fuzzy genius of SHOCKING BLUE’s first LP but with keen understanding of any decent counter-culture aural fad of the 90‘s and 00‘s … or perhaps the earnest pop genius of the first two BLONDIE LPs being ground though a pre-heroin STOOGES meat grinder. Take all of that diarrhea-of-the-keyboard nonsense I just said and put it next to this - hopefully most of you are familiar with the HIPSVILLE 29 B.C. compilation series, and it’s the first thing I thought of when I heard Terrible Feelings. Painfully REAL music, with equal amounts of strength and somberness, played by young people who seem as if they would die if weren’t for being able to hammer out these crude dollops of heartfelt, honest Rock N’ Roll. It’s “the real deal”. No shit, no joke, no fuckin’ around.

As a sincerely neurotic and clinically anxious pessimist I’d also like to bring up the unbelievable lyrical content that Terrible Feelings manages to bring to the already musically-flawless table:

“Don’t have childish visions
You won’t achieve a thing
There’s no meaning”

“Deny yourself fulfillment dreams
And you will live happily”

“Where do good dreams go?
I haven’t seen them for a long, long time
To my unborn child
There is nothing to enjoy in life.”

These are lyrics of stark naked sincerity, with one foot firmly planted in the cement of teenaged frustration and the other in the tar of adult intelligence. The words of Terrible Feelings songs are akin to the kind of things those of us with an unshakeable affinity for despair repeat to ourselves in our heads over and over and over again; unable to break the dark spell of gloom cast by being able to see the world as it actually is. In a way that I can easily compare to Nirvana and Leonard Cohen, Terrible Feelings have lyrics that you’ll actually want to read along with as you listen to their records. For those of us who live in the dark, Terrible Feelings will mean a whole lot.

HENENLOTTER RETROSPECTIVE AT ANTHOLOGY!

2011-11-02T21:18:00.000-04:00

FRANK HENENLOTTER RETROSPECTIVE
Uncut, uncensored, unhinged - Director in person!

November 4-6 at Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave, NY, NY 10003

“I always felt that I made exploitation films. Exploitation films have an attitude more than anything – an attitude that you don’t find with mainstream Hollywood productions. They’re a little ruder, a little raunchier, they deal with material people don’t usually touch on, whether it’s sex or drugs or rock and roll. They’re what I grew up on.” –Frank Henenlotter

Anthology is thrilled to unleash a wild and bloody batch of Frank Henenlotter’s classic films, all uncut, uncensored, and completely unhinged. Henenlotter is one of those mythic directors that people immersed in Exploitation and Horror culture absolutely worship. His knowledge of genre and classic films is scholarly, he’s been one of the primary behind-the-scenes brains at Something Weird Video since their breakout, and his films are both celebrations of American Exploitation cinema and legitimate extensions of it. It’s a tough line to toe indeed, but being an obsessive 42nd St. moviegoer from the time he was a teen was the perfect classroom for Henenlotter – he endlessly soaked up celluloid scum until he had no choice but to make his own vile offering to the cruel gods of ‘the Deuce’ in the form of his first feature film, BASKET CASE.

BRAIN DAMAGE (1988, 84 minutes, 35mm-to-video.)

Considered by many hardcore Henenlotter fans to be his finest, BRAIN DAMAGE is a wild yetcohesive patchwork of addiction-fueled mania, set in the disgusting glory oflate-80s NYC. Brian meets Aylmer, a mysterious, ancient, snake-like (ok, phallic) parasitic creature that lives off of brain juice, which it consumes by poking a fang into the host’s spine. The reward (or bait) that Aylmer offers for his meals is an overpowering color-soaked mind-trip that proves to be quite addictive. Gory, goopy, and hilarious, BRAIN DAMAGE is also somehow personal and touching. It’s perhaps the best example of Henenlotter’s extraordinary ability to make us sympathize with characters who are insurmountably separated from society by deformity and dementia. Featuring spectacularly funny (and uncredited) voice work from none other than John Zacharley! Drastically cut in its original theatrical release, BRAIN DAMAGE will be theatrically screenedhere totally uncut for the first time. – Friday, November 4 at 7:00 and Sunday, November 6 at 4:30.

FRANKENHOOKER - (1990, 85 minutes, 35mm.)

Easily Henenlotter’s most comedic film, FRANKENHOOKER still packs a wallop of 42nd St. sleaze, coated in bright purple slime. It’s the weird tale of Jeffery Franken (played by the hilarious James Lorinz of STREET TRASH and PUNCH THE CLOCK), a med school drop out who tragically loses his bride-to-be in a remote-control lawnmower accident. His love for her runs so deep, however, that he devises a way to get her back – and with a better body this time. Traveling from suburban New Jersey into Manhattan to find specimens for his fiancée’s reanimation, he crosses paths with tough guy pimp Zorro, and the downward spiral of fun andfreakiness goes full speed from there on out. It’s Henenlotter’s twist on BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and his version has a lot more prostitutes than James Whale’s. Not to mention “Supercrack”… –Friday, November 4 at 9:30 and Saturday, November 5 at 9:30.

BASKET CASE - (1982, 91 minutes, 35mm-to-video.)

The cult classic that started it all, painstakingly restored this year to its intended specifications and now completely remastered. Duane Bradley has a relationship with his twin brother that most people would consider odd – after all, Duane was born with his brother Belial growing out of his right ribcage. Yes, it’s disgusting – that’s what their father thought too, so he hired some unscrupulous doctors to sever the boys’ ties. Henenlotter’s debut is the most bizarre tale of brotherly love ever committed to film, and a brilliant, low-budget time capsule of Times Square and NYC in all its early-80s scum and glory – seeing the streets as they were then is worth the price of admission alone. Due to painfully scarce prints, BASKET CASE hasn’t been screened theatrically (possibly at all) since its 80s stint as a real-deal NYC Midnight Movie. We won’t tell you what’s in the basket though…you’ll have to see for yourself. –Saturday, November 5 at 4:45 and Sunday, November 6 at 6:30.

BASKET CASE 2 - (1990, 90 minutes, 35mm-to-video.)

Sequels can be tricky business. Duplicating the original film’s storyline almost never works, but departing from its style isn’t a solution either. Henenlotter pulls off the impossible here with a wildly original follow up that maintains thefirst film’s strong characters. Kevin Van Hentenryck returns as Duane Bradley, still toting around his big ol’ basket. This time he escapes the confines of the concrete jungle for a nice relaxing stay with Granny Ruth, perfectly played by legendary jazz vocalist Annie Ross, of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Granny Ruth has a soft spot for nature’s special ones, and she knows that other folks don’t share her point of view. So she’s worked hard to secretly operate a safe haven for freaks – lots of freaks – and lovingly takes Duane and Belial under her wing. But, as outsiders get wind of who might be hiding out at Granny Ruth’s, the boys’ sibling rivalry kicks into high gear again and the real freakshow begins.
–Saturday, November 5 at 7:00 and Sunday, November 6 at 8:30.

Credits: Organized by Mike Hunchback; special thanks to Frank Henenlotter, Joe Bob Briggs, James Glickenhaus, and Nadia Rawlings.

AMERICA LOVES ITS VILLAINS: The Boyd Rice Documentary Experience

2011-08-19T13:22:00.021-04:00

ICONOCLAST: The Boyd Rice Documentary
Only current NY screenings: August 20th & 21st, 7 pm
at Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave, NYC 10003

"America loves its Villains ..."

You’ll hear Boyd Rice say that a couple times over the course of Larry Wessel’s epic (4 hour) new documentary “ICONOCLAST” - a title which works in description of both Rice and the documentary itself. It’s almost like “Freakonomics” for the Goth / Industrial / Noise set, and it’s a very welcome banner to see hanging. I can’t think of a film that has better debunked the myth of the “evil” intentions and attitudes of this sect of society, and if hilarious anecdotes about Anton LaVey’s penchant for electronic whoopee cushions - or simply “fart machines” - doesn’t debunk it for you, then I‘m not sure anything ever will.

Boyd Rice's ouerve has various specific categories. His knowledge of many various areas of American pop and unpop culture is at the level of scholarly. He's considered to be one of the most seminal names in the Noise genre, he was part of the defining stages of Industrial Culture, he did enormous things for Exotica music and Tiki culture, he's written material in the "Answer Me!" zine, "Apocalypse Culture" Book; and his own books, both fiction and nonfiction. He and his friend Jim Morton literally wrote THE book on strange films, "Incredibly Strange Films", which would strongly influence coming generations to deviate from their local shopping mall multiplex's menu of pandering crap. The list goes on quite a long time. From teen years to my "adulthood", I'd heard the name Boyd Rice in association with so, so many fascinating things. Often these things seemed to fit into a kind of mold to me - it was as if the cool people that were 10 - 20 years older than I had found these magical connections between Charles Manson, old cartoons, H.G. Lewis, flea-markets, and weird records. They made fanzines and films, wrote books, recorded amazing records ... Some of the content featured was totally shocking to me - pictures of actual deaths/accidents, writing that championed the crimes of serial killers, and of course wildly offensive humor. At first it was hard to understand. I think it was because (in some ways at least) I was a 'good person'. I couldn't conceive of someone genuinely celebrating this kind of thing. I understood sarcasm, but this stuff was WAY more extreme than that. As I grew more, I increasingly became enraged by what I saw as injustice and stupidity around me. I began to have feelings that I couldn't exorcise with simple sarcasm. I was getting to the point of needing cathartic release, and I didn't know it yet. Seriously folks, if it wasn't for films like "The Defilers" and zines like "Answer Me!" I'm sure I would've went Columbine. So, sometime in my 20's, I started to "get it". And with that came a lot of knowledge and power. Part of what was so attractive about this (at times) extremely alienating culture was that so many people involved in it, unlike most people in most scenes, didn't appear to be total assholes. Or more accurately, these assholes seemed a whole lot more like me. In other words, breakfast cereal and mass murder were fine to talk about in the same breath.

As I became more exposed to this world, Boyd Rice seemed to be near the top of it. At once he was someone who had wonderful, honest and courageous taste; as well as someone who spoke freely about his thoughts and feelings AND accepted the same from others he widely and intensely disagreed with. Cumulatively, ignoring one's personal beliefs at the same time as refusing to accept another's seems like the new American Pastime - and it's through this unfortunate window that ICONOCLAST will look most poignant.

The opening image of “Iconoclast” is that of a woman’s vagina. A knife sits on her belly, the “NON” (Rice's Noise outfit) logo is scarred onto her pelvis, and she’s bleeding (not profusely by any means) from several fresh slices on her inner thighs and stomach. It’s clearly a confronting image. One that certain viewers might find distasteful; and therefore attribute an unwholesome, sexist, nihilistic, or even “evil” nature to the people involved with creating this image. It’s a rather brilliant choice on Wessel’s part, the next sequence is the “exorcism of homosexuality” of some poor woman who apparently did time as a lesbian. The preacher tells her “What those girls did to you - now, that’s not your fault. You can still accept Jesus into your life”. All of this before the speaking in tongues begins and another preacher demands that she “smell the bible” … The set up couldn’t be better, the audience’s nose is rubbed directly in an issue that I’ve always felt was widely ignored: if we as individuals all have these values that we say we do; if we all hold this particular morality and believe in our own freedom and civil rights, then by these standards WHO is the REAL “bad guy” here? Which of these situations is actually "wrong", or "unwholesome", or “evil”? People liking kinky sex and cutting themselves up might not exactly be an activity for Sunday School, but it’s really an individual’s choice if he or she would like to do something like that. It simply doesn't have anything to do with anyone else; unlike the idea that God would want those who spread his words of love, acceptance, and forgiveness to not only CARE about other people’s sex lives, but actually engage in the repulsive acts that one will witness in ICONOCLAST’S opening sequence. Those actions, to me, are a great example for "evil". The confrontation of the film’s opening forces the viewer to make a logical conclusion of whom they think the “bad guy” really is. It’s a hell of a morality barometer, and it draws a very obvious line as to what’s right and what’s wrong. The intensity of imagery and art does not support actual wrong action. It can indicate it, exploit it, expose it, embrace it - but as “wrong” as a viewer finds this imagery to be it’s only ever because of his or her own interpretation.

“Iconoclast” appeals to two different audiences. The Cult of Boyd will be thrilled, much of the information offered here is fresh, as Rice’s life story hasn’t been a very accessible one. The other audience, the audience who doesn’t know of Boyd Rice or his art, will be treated to an explicitly unique experience regarding someone who is completely, totally and gloriously, a truly underground entity.

I spoke to both Larry and Boyd recently about ICONOCLAST, their artistic processes; and of course, some incredibly strange films ...

Interview with ICONOCLAST director Larry Wessel -

Mike Hunchback: What was your first inspiration to make a documentary on Boyd Rice and how did Iconoclast go from just an idea to an actual project?

Larry Wessel: On November 16, 1997 I attended a show at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles headlined by Death in June with NON/Boyd Rice as the opening act. Before entering the club, I encountered a very strange scene taking place on the sidewalk that night. There were a few protestors there who had somehow successfully gotten the management of the El Rey to ban NON/Boyd Rice from performing. When Boyd emerged from backstage during Death in June's set, I followed him outside to the front of the theatre and introduced myself. He said that he already knew who I was and that he was a big fan of Taurobolium, my Tijuana bullfight documentary and that Anton LaVey (another big fan of Taurobolium) had screened it for him at The Church of Satan. Incidentally I was told this story over and over again by various people who we're lucky enough to have an audience with Anton LaVey that he would require them on their first meeting to spend 2 hours watching Taurobolium with him! Boyd and I kept in touch with each other after that show. In 2000, I traveled to Colorado to shoot Boyd for a documentary I was doing about obsessed collectors. Boyd was a collector of Scopitone movies and obscure girl group records and I interviewed him about the obscure objects of his desire. It was during a dinner we were having at the bizarre restaurant/amusement park Casa Bonita that I pitched him on doing a documentary on his life. He didn’t seem very interested in doing this at the time. He suggested that I do a documentary about The Partridge Family Temple instead. On June 24, 2002 Death in June did a show at the Key Club in West Hollywood and I shot the entire concert. Two years later, Death in June and NON/Boyd Rice returned to the Key Club for another show. A few weeks prior to this return engagement, I received an email from Boyd. Boyd said that he was a big fan of all of my documentaries and ended the email message with, "What about doing a documentary about ME?". So I guess that I must've planted a seed when I had suggested this idea to him 4 years prior to this! I responded that I would love to do a documentary about him. he then informed me that it would be his last tour with Death in June and that it might be my last opportunity to interview Douglas P. Wearing his strange Death in June mask, Douglas gave me a very humorous and informative interview. The final show at the Key Club was made very strange by the presence of protestors once again. They were carrying picket signs. One of the signs had "STOP NAZI MUSIC" scrawled on it. Another read, "BOYD RICE IS A NAZI THROUGH AND THROUGH". I filmed Boyd confronting the protestors outside of the show and found it extremely odd that they didn't even recognize the man they we're protesting! This was the beginning of an odyssey that would end 6 years later with the red carpet world premiere of Iconoclast at Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood on August 17, 2010.

MH: Was anyone particularly difficult to pin down for an interview?

LW: Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) and Mark Pauline (Survival Research Laboratories) would not answer my email inquiries. I had a pleasant telephone chat with Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle) up until he told me that "there is no way that I would be in a documentary about Boyd Rice". I asked Gen why and he told me that he didn't have to give me an explanation. He said that "Boyd knows why". I asked Boyd about why he thought that Gen didn't want to participate in ICONOCLAST and Boyd was simply mystified. When I called RE/Search's V. Vale after he didn't return any of my emails, we talked on the phone for close to 4 hours. Vale said that the only way he would be in ICONOCLAST is if Boyd provided a signed affidavit that he was not in or affiliated with any white supremacist or neo-nazi groups.

MH: As a viewer I noticed some great reoccurring themes in ICONOCLAST. Did you have a direction in mind when you began filming, or perhaps when you began editing? Or were these occurrences totally natural?

LW: The process for making one of my documentaries always begins with shooting miles and miles of footage with everything unfolding naturally. No preconceptions or battle plan at all. I never dictate the content. I prefer that my subject matter and the audience for my documentaries think for themselves. In the case of Iconoclast, I ended up with 200 plus hours of interviews with Boyd Rice and approx. 40 or so other people! It is during the editing process that my films take shape. This is when I find the narrative structure, a natural beginning, middle and end and where I can begin to have fun with the content and infuse it with many levels of meaning.

MH: I don't think anyone interested in seeing a Boyd Rice documentary would be upset about the film's length, but did you have any reservations when you arrived at the 4 hour mark?

LW: I have always been very comfortable with the unusual length of ICONOCLAST. So far nobody who has seen ICONOCLAST has complained about it's length. On the contrary, people keep telling me that ICONOCLAST is so fast paced, so fun and exciting that they are left wanting to see more!

MH: Is there anything in particular that it hurt to leave out?

LW: There was an entertaining section on cult leader Uriel and her Unarius Academy in El Cajon that Boyd was fascinated by and would frequently visit that I felt a little sad about removing.

MH: Are you working on another documentary at the moment?

LW: Yes. As a matter of fact I am in the process of editing 4 more documentaries, all which have already completed shooting. The first one (mentioned previously) I began shooting it in the year 2000 and is about obsessed collectors. The second one is a documentary about the amazing artist from Albuquerque, Beth Moore-Love. Number three is a sequel to ULTRAMEGALOPOLIS, my documentary about Los Angeles. And the forth one is all about New York City and my adventures there.

Interview with Boyd Rice, subject of ICONOCLAST -

Mike Hunchback: Any reservation to having a documentary made on you?

Boyd Rice: No, no.

MH: And how did you meet Larry?

BR: I knew of him through Anton LaVey and other mutual friends and he’s sort of showed up one night when I was playing at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and we immediately hit it off. He had some sort of very favorable, lucky night because of being with me. He got to hang out with some sexy young girl, and he was saying “Boyd, you bring me luck, you bring me luck!”

MH: The thing I noticed perhaps most about ICONOCLAST was that you seem to have evolved into a very appropriate person. The image a lot of people have of you is that of a antagonist or a disrupter, but there’s so much of the film where we see you being quite courteous and quite polite. I really like the stuff near the end of them film where you’re speaking with Bob Larson and you're both laughing, even though you guys clearly disagree about a lot of things. It just didn’t seem to affect you that someone thought so differently.

BR: It never has, it never has. I was friends with Jello Biafra for over a decade and I never saw eye to eye with his politics, but it didn’t matter. I was apolitical and I didn’t care what anybody else thought. I kind of had that Thomas Jefferson thing where he says that “A man can believe in whatever he wants to so long as it doesn’t break my leg or pick my pocket”. I really don’t care. That’s sort of always been my attitude. There was a time when I disagreed far more severely with Bob Larson, I saw him as being emblematic of something that was baleful of Western Civilization.

MH: Is there anybody that you would’ve liked to see in ICONOCLAST that didn’t make it in? I heard Jello was hard to get a hold of.

BR: I thought that Larry did get a hold of Jello and he just said ‘I absolutely don’t wanna be a part of this”. Because early on, when Larry was saying ‘who should I interview for this?’ I said ‘Well, you really need to interview Jello Biafra’ and you need to interview Vale from Re/Search, you need to get some of these people … it’ll be more interesting if it’s like me being on Bob Larson’s radio show. There’s some people who are saying horrible things about me that will make it a lot more fun. Unfortunately, all those people, those dissenting voices, refused to be part of it. It’s not like they were excluded or disinvited or anything. We asked as many people as we could think of and some just said ‘no, forget about it’.

MH: That brings me to something we had talked about in email, the Village Voice review. Right off they mention Bob Larson being in the film, but quickly the piece begins to be about how no one interviewed in ICONOCLAST questioned you, or disagreed with you. It didn’t seem that way to me, and you were also saying how you didn’t feel that this was the case …

BR: (laughs) Yeah, I don’t think it was … I mean who could you get who is in greater disagreement with me than Bob Larson? The film starts with Bob Larson, Bob Larson is in the middle, and the film essentially ends with Bob Larson. It’s like you were saying earlier, you think I’m a mellower person, and I’m happier and I’m more civil and relaxed, and realistically that’s the person I’ve always been and that’s why I’ve been around for 33 years. Because I’m civil, and I’m polite and people really, really like me. There’s this perception out there that ‘Boyd is this guy that nobody likes’. I think the absolute adverse is true, everybody likes me except for a handful of malcontents. And I think even those malcontents once they see this movie will have a hard time reconciling their feelings against me towards what they see on the screen, because I’m obviously not what they imagine I am. And you know, that’s a good thing! (laughs)

MH: Some of my favorite material you’ve ever done is your material in “Answer Me!”. I expected to see a little bit about that in the documentary but it didn’t get covered. I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the beginning of your collaboration with them.

BR: I went out to Musso and Frank’s [editor's note everyone should visit this amazing historical landmark at least once] in Hollywood for a meal … Jim and Debbie Goad were living right around the corner from Musso and Frank’s. I went out with them, Coop and his wife, and Adam Parfrey who does Feral House, we all went out to have dinner at Musso and Frank’s. And I think Russ Meyer was there with a babe in the corner booth. He was always there, back in the days that you could still smoke cigars in Musso and Frank’s, and he was always smoking a cigar. So, I met them then and they really took to me, they kind of expected me to be like y’know … [it was as if they were thinking] ‘Oh, this is just some guy who does noise music, why do you want us to meet him?’. But we realized there was some sort of overlap or interface between our world views. He had me do that thing where I gave the definition for those words or something ['Rice Ain't Nice', Answer Me! #3], so I did that, then they decided to do the rape issue of the magazine and I gave him that piece ['RAPE: Revolt Against Penis Envy' Answer Me! #4]. And that’s another of these things that I expected people to want to tar and feather me for … but people just said ‘ Wow, I love your article on Rape!”. Crispin Glover even told me he took that out of the magazine and had it bound! And read that to every girl who came to his house … I said ‘Really? What kind of reaction do you get?’ and he said [Crispin Glover voice] ‘Really good, really really good’ …Strange!

MH: (laughs) That’s great … changing gears just a little, have you had any personal discoveries of film in the recent years? And would you ever go back to the style of writing you did on “Incredibly Strange Films”?

BR: Yeah, yeah. That area is kind of vast and bottomless, so I’m discovering new stuff all the time. My friend Jim Morton who wrote the Incredibly Strange Films book with me recently spent a lot of time in Berlin and he’s discovered these East German films that are absolutely mind-blowing. Like, East German Beach Party movies, Disaster movies, Science Fiction movies. Especially now with DVD, a lot of obscure stuff is coming out that it would have been impossible to release 20 years back … it’s just like, everything is coming back again. And it’s stuff you’ve forgotten about, and it’s stuff you never even knew about, so I’m seeing new stuff all the time.

MH: For a while you weren’t using the internet much, but now you seem to be more frequent. Do you mind being on there these days, or does it serve its purpose for you?

BR: The internet is the triumph of communication over content; of information over knowledge. It's the opiate of the masses in a far more profound way than religion ever was. And, it’s a mixed blessing, it’s a double edged blade. I sort of need to do it for business purposes, because I’m doing stuff with people all over the world and it’s really the most convenient way to communicate with them. It still drives me crazy a bit … and I can’t be on there in some social networking fashion, I can’t put up with that. I don’t even like looking at the things people write, even the positive things sometimes drive me crazy. There’s a lot of stuff on there I’d rather not know about. My girlfriend sort of convinced me I need to be on there for business reasons, and you know it’s working really well lately, like this interview with you.

MH: Do you think the internet has changed much about the realms of culture you enjoy? Films for instance - do you think that the way that people talk about or discuss these movies has changed? Is there a different kind of appreciation now, and is it better or worse?

BR: Well, I’m not sure what you mean, but I think part of the charm to me of those movies we documented in the Incredibly Strange Films book was that you sort of had to be an insider. You had to sort of know about these things, and they rarely played in movie theatres; if they were on television at all you’d have to scan the TV Guide and watch them at three in the morning, and you‘re sort of watching these rarefied movies at a time when you knew everybody else in the city is asleep. So it made it seem special, it made it seem like something that was your own personal possession. And it seems like now it’s this proliferation of media where people don’t really have to try so hard, so I don’t know if these movies are as special to them as they were to me when I was 16 years old. You can just go on the internet and see them live streaming, and it makes other suggestions and you can see something similar … y’know, I don’t know if it’s bastardized the experience for everybody else or not … I still like if “Manos: Hands of Fate” is on TV. I just watched “A Bucket of Blood” again -

MH: (totally interrupts) Oh it’s so good, goddamn it’s great …

BR: This coffee table art book is coming out from Outre Press in Australia, and it’s of my collection of thrift store paintings. Martin Macintosh who owns Outre Gallery also has thrift store paintings. I wrote an intro to that and I mention “Bucket of Blood”, and how that represented this weird, beatnik ideal of ‘the artist as the free spirit!’ He just sent me the intro and he uses a photo of “Bucket of Blood”, and it was the same night “Bucket of Blood” was on television …

MH: I actually had the pleasure of seeing it on film at Anthology not long ago. There was an amazing retrospective of Corman films, with a bunch of the Corman Poe films, “Bucket of Blood”, and they even played “The Intruder”. To see that on film was unbelievable. You guys have a great home in showing “ICONOCLAST” at Anthology, they really are the coolest in NY I think.

BR: Wow, yeah. I’m excited about it, very excited.

MH: One of my favorite people in the film is Adam Parfrey. He comes off great in the documentary and seems like a wonderful guy. Can you tell me a little about your friendship with him? It seems like you guys get along very well in real life …

BR: Yeah well I met him, strangely enough, at a film screening in San Francisco many, many years ago, and he kind of approached me and said ‘Hey, I’m going to put out this book, called APOCALYPSE CULTURE, it’s gonna come out on Grove Press. I’d like you to write something for it.’ He gave me his prospectus and I went home and looked at it and it was just absolutely over the top. And I just thought ‘there’s no way anybody’s going to publish this book, not even Grove Press!’. But, he kept in touch with me, and every time he sent me the updated outlines for the book it became more and more cohesive, so I did something for it. And you know, it came out and at the time there was nobody in San Francisco I could talk to about the sort of things that were in “Apocalypse Culture”, none of my friends wanted to hear it. So I sort of began a long phone friendship with Adam. He was in New York, I was in San Francisco and this was in the days when long distance calls were really, really cost-prohibitive. But we spent hours on the phone talking about this stuff, and I suspect he had nobody in NY to really discuss this stuff with either, so it was like we’d get off the phone and we’d sort of recharged our batteries. Afterward we probably both thought 'Well gee, I’m not so crazy after all, there’s this other guy who sees very much eye to eye with me'. So yeah, we’ve been friends for … it’s gotta be 25 years or something. And he’s coming out with a book called “Feral Man in a Feral Land” and it’s essentially an oral biography of his life and experiences in publishing, and I’ve done a bunch of stuff for that.

MH: Speaking of “Apocalypse Culture” … it makes me think about the time period it came out in, about things like “Answer Me!”, and about a lot of really interesting visual art and music that were going on at the time … It seemed like there was a very intense uprising of that kind of extremely strong imagery and topics, often confrontational. I’ve had a couple of my friends tell me things like “The first time I read “Answer Me!” I was physically shaking”, or that it was “the biggest breath of fresh air we could have had at the time in the 90‘s“. Do you think there was something specific about that time that made that kind of art and talking about those kinds of things more appropriate?

BR: Things like "Apocalypse Culture" and "Answer Me!" were sort of a response to the times. They were a by-product of their times while still being one giant step ahead of them. If you're too young to remember the mid 80's, it was a very apocalyptic time: there was a lot of gang violence, drive-by shootings, the AIDS epidemic was just going full throttle, and the world seemed to be going to shit. Yet everyone was still talking about peace, love, and harmony. We were sort of the odd men out. We were the voices in the wilderness. People who were essentially asking "what if everyone's basic assumption is wrong?". And it seemed to be. My new book "Twilight Man" is about this period. It's an autobiographical novel due out in a month or so on Heartworm Press. It details some of the ugliness and violence I experienced on an almost nightly basis as an alarm agent working the graveyard shift. By the time I left San Francisco, my favorite film character was Travis Bickle. That more or less laid the foundation for my mindset during the late eighties and the decade of the nineties.

MH: Is there anything fresh or challenging coming out now that’s interested you lately?

BR: I like Cold Cave, if you’re familiar with them. I like this band that’s also on the same label, the Liars.

MH: Though I haven’t read Lisa Carver’s book myself, I keep hearing about some of its contents regarding an abusive relationship between you two. I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject and also give you a chance to defend yourself against any rumors.

BR: I think Lisa got maybe one sentence in the film and that was one too many. I recently debunked her lies about me in an interview you can find on WFMUs BEWARE THE BLOG. It was good to finally defend myself after all these years and get the truth out there, but really it all seemed so sad and boring. After all this was like 16 years ago or something that these charges were literally laughed out of court. Lisa admitted in an interview that she wrote her book in order to destroy my life and career ... words of a spurned woman. I've undergone a few decades of false accusations about a great many things and if I cared enough to defend myself against them all it would be a full time job. Those who choose to believe such things are going to do so no matter what you say. Luckily, I don't really care. As you saw in the film, I live a great life and I'm very happy.

This one was for Amber! Visit Larry Wessel’s website here: http://wesselmania.net

Visit Boyd Rice’s website here: http://boydrice.com

Visit Anthology Film Archives here for the most happening revival screenings in New York: http://anthologyfilmarchives.org

Very, very special thanks to Boyd and Larry for being so accessible.

And everyone check out ICONOCLAST tomorrow and Sunday at Anthology Film Archives!

THE FILMS OF RENE DAALDER - COMING TO ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES

2011-06-01T16:28:00.005-04:00

THE FILMS OF RENE DAALDER -
COMING TO ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
JUNE 8 – 12, 2011

In my world, Rene Daalder is best known for “Massacre at Central High”, a glorious little 1976 teen killer flick with the ample qualities of both a delicious potboiler and a smart, fresh independent film about violence. It fits that rare category of film that I place “Ms. 45” in, but inarguably it’s infinitely more playful. Beyond that I didn’t know who Daalder was; and when I heard Anthology was showing “Massacre …” as well as the director’s other features, my curiosity heightened. Further reading revealed that he’d also made the classic-era Punk film “Population: 1”, done a lot of work in effects (X-Files, Brainscan, Robocop 2, and many others) … AND that he was a friend and assistant to Russ Meyer; as if that revelation wasn’t enough, it seems that Daalder’s also responsible for pieces of the Sex Pistols film “The Greatest Rock and Roll Swindle” … and trust me, this list goes on.

Rene Daalder is known for being at the forefront of many different aspects of art, special effects and filmmaking; so very much so that summarizing his art into one program or showing could have several different angles from which to approach. It’s impossible that a better approach could have been taken than the one taken by Anthology Film Archives; as what is easily New York’s most diverse Cinema is even topping themselves a bit with this quite obscure, absolutely wonderful series.

Daalder’s features remind me in a way of Buster Keaton. The magic of Buster Keaton is so often in his ability to make nearly-magical humor from the most mundane and common physical surroundings. It doesn’t matter if his only tools are a pile of paper garbage, a dollar bill and a broom – Buster manages to twist reality into any color of hilarity he wishes, and thusly paints a masterpiece each time. It’s from this school that Rene Daalder has graduated with honors. It’s interesting to think that Daalder is so successful creating wildly unique special effects for other films; for in what I’d call his most personal work, Daalder seems to have a similar ability to Keaton. In his most recent film, “The Terrestrials”, Daalder, in a manner seemingly more casual than most directors would display, takes things available to him – a houseful of brilliant and drug-addled, young Santa Cruz college students; access to Timothy Leary’s personal archive; his own experiences with drugs, science and art; and his wild imagination; and uses video to both film and assemble a “sci-fi documentary” (Werner Herzog’s “Wild Blue Yonder” pleasantly comes to mind). It’s an absolutely incredible journey, and while the viewer can have crushes on the subjects of the film as if it were a romantic teen comedy, it’s at the same time that elements of this real story are being twisted into a science fiction parable that also works alongside the life and learnings of Dr. Timothy Leary, who makes many appearances in “The Terrestrials” via his archive footage. It’s rare that achievements of this kind of creativity can be matched with a film’s content and watchability; and the combination of these elements places “The Terrestrials” extremely high on the list of films to not miss in NYC this summer - this is a brilliant, and refreshingly original piece of work.

Another major factor of interest regarding Daalder is how he’s consistently made films over the years. Perhaps with bigger gaps in some places, but without a doubt - this guy was never NOT working. Like his ability to put things available to him in front of the camera, certain periods of his career indicate that he had no qualms about utilizing this methodology behind the camera as well. During the 90’s Daalder found opportunity in the fascinating direct-to-video / direct-to-cable world. Now, when young Mike Hunchback was cutting his teeth in the world of esoteric cinema consumption, Michael J. Weldon’s seminal Mag “Psychotronic Video” was one of the only trustworthy sources for information. Daalder’s films “Hysteria” and “Habitat” are excellent examples of what a 90’s Psychotronic film can be. As much as the direct-to-video world had its majority of drek, it didn’t mean that the occasional nugget of silver wouldn’t slip out from time to time. Basically, if approached with a solid script and idea, the people producing these small/mid budgeted films had no reason to interfere with it (unlike major studios) and even less a reason to interfere if they had a real director on their hands. The freedom allowed by this situation made it possible for Rene to create, with his typical, ferociously unique and artful concepts, two completely delightful films that wouldn’t EVER have been able to come from a major studio. It’s not a world that most understand. I really learned a lot from reading the reviews pages of “Psychotronic”. There, nothing was subject to extremely negative scrutiny, at least not for reasons of budget and content. All these films had a fair shake between those pages. I began to watch films with a very open mind, knowing that although I may be about to watch something with far less than state of the art effects, I was also potentially about to watch something totally unique. I can’t applaud Anthology enough for the inclusion of these films in their Daalder program. “Habitat” and “Hysteria” belong to our most recent cinematic ghost town, and films of this ilk are hardly in vogue with those who don’t still use their VCRs regularly. “Habitat” brings into question extreme concepts, of both an ecological and existential nature. Having seen Daalder’s “Here is Always Somewhere Else” (talked about later here) put these interesting, somewhat cyberpunkish flourishes into amazing perspective – this is conceptual art and straight-to-video science fiction blended perfectly together; with absolutely no pretention involved.

Again and again marrying what was at his disposable with his vivid imagination, Daalder repeated this success with the unbelievable tale of madness and individuality, “Hysteria”. Starring Michael Maloney, Amanda Plummer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, and Patrick McGoohan, “Hysteria” is a very fresh take on the concept of “group-mind” study and possession, with fun and clever metaphors on society and the murky definition of identity. My devolved eye couldn’t help notice not only the invigorating inspiration from Tod Browning’s “FREAKS”, but also the black humor of the film’s concept – “If everyone is crazy, does that not make insanity ‘sane’?”. Although I’m sure you all agree with me, I’d be very curious to know how many times YOU checked your email, facebook and text messages in the duration of reading this … see what I mean? That’s just ONE characteristic of the existing group mind of today’s society. Now put your damn phone away I’m almost done …

“Here is Everywhere Else” is undoubtedly the crown jewel of the series. While the other films are diamonds indeed, this documentary is the piece that makes all of them relevant as works of Rene Daalder. When Daalder immigrated to the US he did so with his friend, artist Bas Jan Ader. They both took journeys with their art as well, but Daalder admits that his own was then a more commercial (though not exclusively so) involvement. The sea becomes a major player in the film, as Ader’s thoughts on gravity (the subject of several of his pieces) eventually shift into an obsession with the Ocean. Ultimately, Ader took a small boat to water alone, with an artistic, conceptual influence in hopes of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He was never found. I don’t want to say too much (this documentary is nothing less than essential viewing), but Daalder’s hypothesizing on the reality and potential meaning of his friend’s death and disappearance is riveting beyond belief, and absolutely territory that’s uncommon for the medium of film as a whole. Rene and Bas Jan’s relationship was that of friendship and enormous respect; without being too deliberate, Daalder manages to incorporate himself in the doc at various times. Perhaps most humorously as he exposes his cocky former-self upon the debut of his first feature “The White Slave”, and most fascinatingly when he reveals the deeper, hidden, Ader-inspired influences that ended up in “Massacre at Central High”. In many ways, it’s that reveal alone that wraps a bow around this program and makes it a real gift. It’s an awesome indication that the cinema of Rene Daalder is a unique and ever-changing organism, and organism so concerned with its intense natural progression that no change in environment can stop it from evolving to higher levels of meaning and execution; and therefore glaring, glorious originality.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
32 SECOND AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10003
(212) 505-5181

June 8-12
THE FILMS OF RENE DAALDER

To be screened:

MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH
1976, 87 minutes, 35mm. With Robert Carradine.
–Thursday, June 9 through Sunday, June 12 at 7:00 each night.

THE WHITE SLAVE
1969, 103 minutes, 35mm-to-video. In Dutch with English subtitles.
With:
1, 2, 3, RHAPSODY (1965, 15 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
–Wednesday, June 8 at 7:00 and Sunday, June 12 at 9:00.

POPULATION: 1
1986, 77 minutes, video. With Tomata du Plenty.
With:
JE MAINTIENDRAI (1973, 25 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
–Wednesday, June 8 at 9:30 and Saturday, June 11 at 9:00.

HABITAT
1997, 103 minutes, video. With Balthazar Getty, Alice Krige, and Laura Harris.
–Thursday, June 9 at 9:00.

HYSTERIA
1998, 91 minutes, video. With Patrick McGoohan, Amanda Plummer, and Emmanuelle Vaugier.
–Friday, June 10 at 9:00.

HERE IS ALWAYS SOMEWHERE ELSE
2007, 78 minutes, video.
Plus, films by Bas Jan Ader, including:
I’M TOO SAD TO TELL YOU (1970, 3.5 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
NIGHTFALL (1971, 4 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
–Saturday, June 11 at 5:00.

THE TERRESTRIALS
2010, 84 minutes, video.
–Sunday, June 12 at 5:00.

For more info be sure to check out Rene’s website:
www.renedaalder.com

And of course:
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

"UNNATURAL SELECTION: The DISAPPEARANCE of TRUTH IN PRINT and the POWERFUL WORDS of UNCLEBOB MARTIN"

2011-05-17T14:10:00.017-04:00

The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride..." But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that?

-Bill Hicks

The “truth”. Do you remember it? Do you remember when you were a kid, when that word – TRUTH – meant a whole lot? Heck, it wasn’t even really a word so much then. It was like a universal constant. You couldn’t MAKE UP the truth; and, you KNEW when you were telling the truth, and you KNEW when you were lying. It made your inside feel all fuzzy with apprehension. It made your ears and cheeks warm, and it made a pit in your little belly. You’d be tingling, your sense of what’s right actually physically battling your body’s actions …

So … what happened?

Well that’s a long story. A story that’s likely different for everybody in some way; but if I were to GUESS, if I were to take a wild friggin’ stab in the dark – I’m thinking that what happened has A LOT to do those little green pieces of paper that we hear so much about. Bear with me here -

Without getting neck deep in the subject, I can say that one of the FACTS of our current existence is, whether you consider it legal or not, that large businesses and institutions own more of “things” (television, radio, print, etc.), both percentage-wise and quantity-wise, than they ever have. Ultimately, it's to secure profit. And somehow, the stronger the quest for dollars gets, the weaker our resistance to not telling the truth becomes; on both the side that’s selling AND the side that’s buying.

Well, it didn’t used to be that way. Really, it didn’t. Even in the greed-soaked excess of the 80’s there was some light at the end of the tunnel. There were still some unique opinions out there, some opinions not based on statistics or fear or payola. There were even companies – both good and evil – that allowed these opinions to be voiced. What was the result? Were these towering monuments of modern American “success” crippled? No, of course not. In fact, a lot of that openness to originality even made money. But as this ownership of “things” got further and further imbalanced, stakes got higher. WAY higher. In fact, the sheer chance of not turning profit began to spell out the potential loss of millions. So, with the strength of wealth, the aid of the US Government, and international renown, the powerhouses of American business all slowly began to eradicate anything but “well-researched”, “tested”, and “safe” practices … the result? Homogeneous tepidity. Look current magazines – the newsstand today is jam-packed with failing slicks. If a magazine is about the lives of famous people, each week’s cover will feature the same plastic faces; even the graphics and text look the same. If the magazine is about a genre of music, the cover again features whichever set of plastic faces are “supposed to” be of interest to the accurately programmed consumer. The problem doesn't exclude Horror Magazines. It’s unnatural selection at best; and at worst it’s a big part of America’s displacement from being a World Power.

The fun of this piece is of course that I can so easily prove my point on the strength of just one Writer / Editor. He edited Fangoria Magazine from 1979 to 1986, the "Splatter Boom Years", and he goes by the name UncleBob Martin (aka Robert Martin, and countless aliases) and in certain circles he’s regarded as a God.

“Why?” you may ask. “How can writing be THAT different or important? CLEARLY you’re just blowing things out of proportion to support your own taste!”

… Ah, the cry of the conditioned, one of the most familiar nature sounds of North America … Look – for me, one of the most aggravating aspects of existing is that some folks aren’t willing to notice the difference of certain things. I think that Fangoria; when it was edited by Bob Martin (and eventually both Bob and David Everitt, who sadly passed away last year), is a glaring and explicit example of Print’s infinite potential to be original, challenging, fascinating, and successful.

Just about any major Horror Magazine that's out now, with very little exception, is a copy of the classic Fango format OR a copy of the classic Famous Monsters format. These mags are willing to ape the template but NOT the attitude (in fact it's an easy argument that Bob's personal rejection of FM was one of Fango's strongest vertebrae). None of them seem to be willing to take the risks that Fangoria took while under UncleBob’s watch, the risks that without question made it revolutionary. As you’ll read about later in his “Fast Food of Horror” article, Bob was handed the helm of a sinking ship and told to "do whatever he wanted". What he wanted was obvious to him - he wanted to produce a magazine so good - so interesting - that he himself would actually fucking read it. I know, sounds complicated, right!?!

Not coincidentally, this is the recipe for success used by EC Comics, MAD Magazine, and of course PLAYBOY - not only market-changingly successful endeavors, but magazines whose creators prided themselves on creating material that appealed to their own tastes. This wildly sensible tone is absent from nearly all widely available print in America - you know, just about any Mag you can buy at 'Barnes and Noble', blecchh ...

You know what’s on the cover of Fangoria #23? A promo shot for "the EVIL DEAD" – a film that wouldn’t be released nationally until 6 months later. It clearly wasn’t Fango’s plan to capitalize on the upcoming release, quite the opposite. Fango’s coverage of the then-unknown "EVIL DEAD" (next to Stephen King’s quote praising the film) was one of the major factors in its success. That's the mark of a fearless Editor. Bob was also selfless and progressive in trying to bring in people like Underground cartoonist Howard Cruise, and especially Michael J. Weldon (of Psychotronic Video fame) and rockabilly singer Johnny Legend. At the time, I don’t know that any other mag with Fango’s level of distribution would have taken these guys on. Yet of course, they were truly experts; guys that were involved at the ground-level, seeking out of new, interesting things. These are the kind of guys who made and contributed to Fanzines, an area of fandom which Fangoria wisely payed close attention to, and even covered regularly.

Bob Martin’s Fangoria had a loving, focused mission: find out about the coolest stuff out there, and share it with their audience. Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie” graces the cover of issue #8 (with an article on it written by Jim Wynorski); the next article is a write up of Hammer’s “Horror of Dracula”, a film released 22 years prior to that issue's publication. Gloriously and successfully so, Fangoria was a free-form project. Films like “Basket Case” were championed alongside big-budget studio fare without a second thought. Fangoria wasn't trying to follow what genre fans already liked - Fangoria was defining it.

Bob Martin's editorial reign at Fangoria changed the landscape of Horror Fandom. Much the same way Forry J. Ackerman's original Famous Monsters did in the 60's, Fangoria grabbed a butcher knife made up of passion and intelligence and psychotically cut their own gory niche into the brain of every literate Monster Kid that was tall enough to reach the newsstand. Gore was good between those pages - and not with an overblown adoration for negativity either - this stuff was fun. That era Fango can make you laugh out loud. But really, now I've gone on way too long - I can't it help it though, very few writers' work have the naked, unbridled passion of UncleBob Martin. I literally teared up a bit looking back on some of these pieces, they're so sadly from another era. An unprogrammed era, still lively with possibility and gore ... Now, finally, I'll let UncleBob speak for himself:

I forgot that I had written the following essay about 20 years ago, upon leaving Fango. It appeared in "Toxic Horror," another mag from the same publisher, and I recently found it posted on the web under my pseudonym "Berthe Roegger."

It was full of typos; I've cleaned it up and added a Pulp Fiction reference that wasn't in the original. –UncleBob Martin

The "Fast Food" of Horror: Jason, Michael & Freddy
By Berthe Roegger
Toxic Horror #1

When I first started writing about horror films ten years ago there was no Freddy Kreuger, no Jason, and Michael Myers had appeared in just one film, John Carpenter's Halloween. At that time, graphically violent horror film was still a disreputable genre. Magazine articles and television critics would occasionally throw a sop to George Romero for Night of the Living Dead, but Cronenberg, Craven, Dante, Carpenter, and others had yet to make "respectable" films, embraced by the mainstream opinion makers.

A lot of things have changed since then, for a lot of reasons. Stephen King has become the world’s best-known, best-selling writer. Horror anthologies are the second-largest genre in syndicated television after game shows. It seems that another Fangoria imitator reaches the newsstands every other month. And all the directors named above have gained some measure of "legitimacy."

The "slasher" film is now a genre unto itself, one that seems to thrive on repetition and formula.

But the producers of these films are not solely to blame for the formula; in fact, the makers of the Halloween and Friday The 13th movies attempted to kill off their lead maniacs early on. It was in response to fan demand that Jason and Michael have been snatched from the grave again and again, ultimately to be absorbed by the mainstream. While the M.P.A.A has gotten tougher than ever in its vigilance against breaches of taste, horror itself has become a part of the mainstream.

So why do I miss the "good old days?"

When Fangoria was first launched, I remember how refreshing it was to present a magazine that did not go on endlessly about the superiority of the "classic" approach to horror. I never could share Forry Ackerman's enthusiasm for Lugosi, Karloff and the rest of the moldering corpses of horror's past. An exploding head, gouting blood, cascades of dripping phlegm---that’s what spoke to me, and it still does. So you are not about to read a rant from me about how the "unseen" is more horrifically subtle then the graphic.

No, what annoys me is that horror has become a franchise system. Say the words "horror movie" nowadays, and the crowd will think of Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers.

To see how this has come about think about the rise of "fast food." I live in Hoboken, New Jersey. Ten years ago, there were about 6 different lunch counters on the main drag where you could get a decent hamburger for under two dollars. Today, there is only McDonald's and Burger King. How did these two close six different independent businesses by offering an inferior, more expensive product?

If you can answer that, you can probably tell me why Freddy, Jason and Michael rule the horror field today.

Fast food chains and mass-market maniacs offer brand name recognition and predictability.

A Big Mac tastes the same everywhere.

Jason remains an inarticulate bludgeoner

Michael is always a silent, single-minded stabber.

Freddy is an anarchistic wisecracking torturer.

In France, a quarter-pounder is a Royale. but you can still get it with cheese.

The popular films that first gave birth to the maniacal trio, by Carpenter, Cunningham, and Craven, were far from predictable, before each was killed, returned to life, and transformed into cash cows. All to please the fans.

But there are fans and there are fans. There's a big difference between the sort of fan I'm used to - the one who looks forward to the next Wes Craven or John Carpenter - and the fan that dominates horror today. He's the guy that thinks Jason is cool, and avidly awaits his next slaughter outing. Those fans were in minority ten years ago. Now they are the overwhelming majority. Why?

It used to be that horror films were given a slow, careful release; perhaps a dozen or so prints were initially struck, then more if success warranted it. A film would open first in New York or Los Angeles, and slowly roll out to other major cities. Word of mouth was the most powerful sales tool, and if a film was no good, it was word of mouth that killed it, quickly, before too much harm had been done.

Nowadays, it's all or nothing. It's a small release if only 300 prints are struck, and most horror films open nationwide, unless they go straight to video. Word of mouth? Forget it. TV ads (and Fango articles) get all the Jasonmaniacs' and Freddyphiles' mouths to watering, and the bulk of the film's money is made in the first opening weekend; even if word turns out to be bad, the investors' money has already been secured. Financial security - sure money - is what sequelizing is all about. Unfortunately for moviegoers, financial security and creative risks seldom mix.

Some would say that the horror sequel is the only way for horror to survive at all in today's market. There are less then 25,000 movie screens in this country; in a summer like the one just past, major releases like Indy Jones III, Batman, Ghostbusters II, License to Kill, and others occupied an overwhelming majority of those screens for most of the summer. Without an identifiable figure like Freddy Kreuger, how could a new, unknown horror film get booked into theaters at all, let alone make any kind of a dent in the market? The American moviegoer has been thoroughly trained to catch every "big" movie that they "must" see.

For myself, and a lot of horror fans like me, it was the little movies that hardly anyone had seen that always had the most appeal. But Jason, Michael, and Freddy have changed all that.

Maybe you think I'm an old fogey, a stick-in-th’-mud, someone who resents, out of jealousy, the amalgamation of greater and greater power in Hollywood. Maybe you have a point. But it also occurs to me that one of the first people to raise a howl about this mass market was the man who started it all. John Carpenter, the writer and director who devised the unkillable maniac in his picture Halloween, fought long and hard to prevent its sequelization; he found that it's very hard to stand between Hollywood sharks and money to be made. Today, the Halloween saga continues without Carpenter's participation, while he continues to make worthwhile horror films, particularly They Live! , which all by itself is worth all the Halloween sequels lumped in one basket.

If Carpenter could do it, so can you -- "Just say no" to junk food horror movies. Only when Jason, Freddy and Michael finally and thoroughly die can horror films start anew.

Both the editorial above and the cover below prove it - Fango had guts! The "feud" with Siskel (and Ebert, it went on in later issues) is a powerful example of the brazen truth-saying fire that existed within Fangoria's pages. It wasn't a critic's place to actually interfere with the production of films, especially through blatant censorship, and it was part of Fangoria's mission at the time to bring down any institution that supported such insidious un-American activity.

Who's that handsome fella!? Much like Kurtzman's magazines, the staff at Fango often made uncredited and hilarious cameos in their house ads, and as we see above Bob himself was no stranger to this.

Below is Fangoria's first George Romero interview. This, like the other interviews included here (do yourself a favor - print and READ these!), are with artists whose careers were very much aided by Fango. Although the merits of their films are apparent enough, the rabid fandom and "vision" of what these artists did was put into a community setting through the pages of Fango. I'll preface this with a brief passage, probably written by Bob, from an intro to a contest announcement in Fango #13:

"We've featured well over 100 films in the two years and 12 issues behind us; but there is still only a handful of filmmakers that we consider the real reason for this magazine's existence; the foremost of these is George Romero. Not only is he one of the most talented screenwriter-directors working today; he has also proved the value of independence - time and time again bypassing formula, risking all on each of his features. And, to the benefit of every truly creative filmmaker, as well as moviegoers, he has made that policy work."

A beautiful editorial below, highlighting with relish the intent of Bob's editorship. I can't even remotely imagine reading something like that in a current national mag's opening notes ...

One of my personal favorite Fango covers. I love reading this on the subway and showing off Giovanni Lombardo Radice's acting talents ... "Drilling for Brains!"

An amazing early John Carpenter interview below; again the perception of these artists as part of a "world" or community is apparent.

For me this is one of the truly interesting special effects pieces. Tom Sullivan and Bart Pierce were totally unknown, and the story of their effects for "Evil Dead" is hardly ordinary.

And in closing, another masterpiece of a cover. I hope to write more on UncleBob in the future, but until then please - for your own sanity, seek out some of his writing. And if perchance there's any young writers out there - take UncleBob on as an influence, it's likely your writing will become more truthful because of it. And if you don't want to write the truth - please don't write at all.

-Mike Hunchback

Sex and Science Fiction

2011-04-25T11:30:00.006-04:00

WARNING: Below is a bunch of pretty serious-sounding (aka boring) writing about the extremely broad topic of sex. The reason for it is the pay off at the end, an absolutely brilliant and hilarious song and video by comedian Rachel Bloom. I’m a life-long enthusiast of Novelty music and I’m passionately in awe of this piece. While literally making me laugh as hard as top-classics like “I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead” and “Marty Feldman Eyes”, it also addresses an area of human sexuality that I’ve tried to champion in music that I myself have made, an area of sexuality that I feel while totally valid, is ignored or disregarded by both big media and small social circles alike; hence the essay.

Human beings are animals. Unique ones, but animals nonetheless. It goes hand in hand with our animal nature that sex, both directly and indirectly, is a big part of our lives and minds. It’s such a powerfully natural part of being human that even forced and unforced personal asexuality is glaringly indicative of sexual thought and behavior.

So much of the total crap we see on TV, online, and in print is trapped by the roles that nature mapped out for us. Men are dominant, strong and stupid (or if they’re smart they’re a witty, cynical asshole). They grab women, of only a couple body types, by the hips or hair and force them into literal and metaphorical submission. The women put up a front at first, but ultimately the strongest male is so powerful that they give in to what they “really want”, to be taken; like we’re cartoon cave-people or something. With homosexuality the representation isn’t that much different, arguably because according to the media the appeal of sex to an audience has to be black and white; one of two things with no room for unique voices and feelings.

I assume and hope that if you’re reading this blog, you think that these roles have little-to-no place in your life. But the thing that scares me is that so many people I know are so affected by this false representation of sexuality that they actually let it interfere with their own sexual comfort. It’s not easy, (and certainly one could argue that girls have much less of a chance to be unaffected by this than boys) but to me, that only means we should try harder to NEVER submit to these stupid templates drawn out by others. Personally, the more I’m disgusted by something or the more I disagree with it morally, the less I let it dictate my actions and beliefs – I disregard it; it’s without value to me. It’s not that the issues aren’t important, or worth fighting over – but personally, the way I feel about things inside is largely unaffected by the massive inaccuracies of both the media and the masses.

I often feel an inner urge to point out areas of things that I think are TRULY sexy, wonderfully sexy, and, absolutely – healthily sexy. Sexuality in American culture has become two very incorrect versions of its actual self – almost aping the Two Party political system we suffer under. On one hand there’s the who-cares-bravado of:

“Hey, none of this stuff is actually that sexist or dangerous, it’s all good, people fuckin’ is A-OK, dawg!”

And on the other side it sounds like:

“Things have gotten so bad with the portrayals of sex that we must even disregard the idea that people’s physical appearance or gender can have sexual connotation.”

And obviously I think neither extreme is true, and that both are potentially dangerous. It’s an endless topic to debate, and it should be debated. But the reason I’m bring it up here today is a somewhat personal one, as mentioned in the warning at the top. So many things that inspire lust in me are things that are part of a rapidly declining underworld, growing more and more “anti-social” in the public's eyes day by day. My mind works like this: I live in a world where READING is sexier than bikinis. I get more way turned on by looking at ladies in the Library than I do at a stupid strip club. For Pete’s sake, BEING YOURSELF is like dirty dancing to me! Are my feelings of sexuality invalid because they’re not represented in mass media or by my peers? Fuck no! And that’s why it feels SOOOO good to have someone be brave enough to just get out there and say something like “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury!".

The song/video "Fuck Me Ray Bradbury" is the work of stand-up comic Rachel Bloom, and is by no means a work of absurdist humor – it’s hilarious because of its heart-on-sleeve confession of the song’s protagonist’s very real sexual desire to commit acts of lust and passion with someone because of his incredible talent to use words for creating sublime and fantastical works of aesthetic beauty and moral truth. It’s not the rigid and unnatural decision of “I AM ONLY ATTRACTED TO PEOPLE FOR THEIR PERSONALITY”, it’s genuine, and that particularly individual view is one of many that’s totally shut out of widely seen visions of sexuality.

“Fuck Me Ray Bradbury” actually sexualizes reading (heck, it goes even further, it sexualizes reading physical BOOKS, no kindles or ipads are present here). And it’s not that we laugh AT her for it, because she’s different. On the contrary – the whole song is a wild celebration of this sexuality; so much of the song’s strength comes from the individualism of her view. The protagonist simply doesn’t see sex any other way, this is how she really feels and the idea that she’s “weird” or “wrong” never crosses her lips. In fact, just the opposite – those who walk the line of the "normal" dating world are ridiculed here!

The parodying of pop and media sensibilities to put forth this kind of vision has seldom been this spot-on – it’s as if there’s a little hope left in this world …

And as far as funny/sexy videos on the internet go, this thing is a fucking light at the end of the tunnel that’s as bright as Golden Apples of the Sun. It’s a Medicine for Melancholy stronger than any I’ve seen since the birth of the ‘net. So please … enjoy!!!

I’m a total novice on this subject, but I am fascinated by it. I urge all of you to check out this brilliant blog sometime (a big influence on this piece): http://sexualityinart.wordpress.com/ .

And as a sort of addendum, I wanted to include a couple short pieces I wrote several years back. They're nowhere online any longer, but I was always happy with these two. The first is a piece on Bradbury's inspirational individualism, and the second is a passage by Theodore Sturgeon, (who's capabilities as writer are arguably equal to that of Mr. Bradbury) in which I attempt to indicate just how damn sexy science fiction writing can be.

Majority's Rules Dept.

When Ray Bradbury was a kid he loved Buck Rogers comic strips. He loved them so much in fact that he began to collect them; with the intention of having all of them and keeping them in order. He took them to school one day and found out very quickly that the other boys shared none of his interest in comics and in fact they berated him for it. The pressure and name-calling from his peers caused Bradbury to do something awful. In a fit of anger and a longing for acceptence he tore up all of his collected Buck Rogers comics, vowing that he wouldn't have anything to do with such childish things as comics again.

Two days later Bradbury found himself crying uncontrollably. He felt enormous anxiety and was so emotionally distraught that he did not at first know what exactly the problem was. He soon realized the terrible mistake he had made. The Buck Rogers comic strips had meant more to him than he had known; they filled a void in him that when left empty would take great feats of ignorance to live with. He knew he needed to cure himself and he knew how to do it. He went out and collected every single strip that he had torn up and replaced it; and he collected every strip that came after those as well.

There was an even larger part to this cure that he also realized he had to follow if he wanted to forever escape the feeling the emptiness of that void: he never listened to ANYONE else ever again. What he liked was his business, and things he thought were valid or beautiful were just that; no questions asked, no seal of approval needed but his own. The world is so much like this in so many ways. Where Ray Bradbury saw beauty and excitement and an influence for pure creativity the world saw a bunch of silly drawings, and those from that world felt threatened enough by this that they tried to scare him into lying to himself. He wouldn't do it. Most people do though, and perhaps the majority rules? Young Mr. Bradbury, don't write The Martian Chronicles. Don't write the Illustrated Man or Something Wicked This Way Comes or be one of the most successful American fiction writers in history. Instead why don't you go play football with the rest of the boys? Don't you want lots of friends? At least that way no one will think you're weird. And after all, that really is the most important thing, isn't it?

___________________________________________________________

Oh Theodore ... Dept.

The quoted text below is from Theodore Sturgeon's sexually potent masterpiece "The Sex Opposite", one of the author's finest short stories:

"Muhlenberg met the girl's eyes, and whether she nodded ever so slightly or whether she did it with a single movement of her eyelids, he did not know, but it meant "yes." He slid into the booth opposite her.

Music came. Only some of it was from the records. He sat and listened to it all. Rudy came with a second drink before he said anything, and only then did he realize how much time had passed while he rested there, taking in her face as if it were quite a new painting by a favorite artist. She did nothing to draw his attention or reject it. She did not stare rapturously into his eyes or avoid them. She did not even appear to be waiting, or expecting anything of him. She was neither remote nor intimate. She was close, and it was good.

He thought, in your most secret dreams you cut a niche in yourself, and it is finished early, and then you wait for someone to come along to fill it - but to fill it exactly, every cut, every curve, hollow and plane of it. And people do come along, and one covers up the niche, and another rattles around inside it, and another is so surrounded by fog that for the longest time you don't know if she fits or not; but each of them hits you with tremendous impact. And then one comes along and slips in so quietly that you don't know when it happened, and fits so well you almost can't feel anything at all. And that is it."

"I LOVE HORROR!"

2011-03-31T17:58:00.002-04:00

You think you’re a Zombie, you think it’s a ‘scene’
From some Monster Magazine
Opened your eyes too late
This ain’t no fantasy, boy …

From the MISFITS’ song “NIGHT OF THE IVING DEAD”, lyrics by Glen Danzig

I LOVE HORROR.

Wait, no –

I
LOVE
HORROR!

Before I just climb on the roof and start shouting it like I want to, let me try to explain myself a little better. I love Horror. And not in the way that people love westerns - and not in the way that people love comedies or film noirs, either. Horror – perhaps beyond any literary or cinematic “genre” - has a lifestyle attached to it. Although there’s a wildly varied fanbase for Horror, there’s still a more cohesive structure to its serious fans than that of any other genre.

Ok, wait, let me back this up - WAY up … OK, I’m in high school, like 10th grade. I worship the vinyl and counter culture gods weekly by visiting one of the finest shops America has ever seen, TRASH AMERICAN STYLE in Danbury, CT, just 30 minutes from where I lived at the time. Malcolm Tent, one of the store’s proprietors, was often the man behind the counter and is also somewhat of a legend. For me, he was an obvious moral role model, and perhaps even more importantly, he was extremely kind at the same time as being head-over-heels excited about things he loved. Malcolm is one of those folks that’s far beyond most humans when it comes to taste, he doesn’t even remotely care that most people want their entertainment pre-packaged with what their reaction should be written on the front. It’s not an easy way to be, and in retrospect, I thank him for his patience talking to yours-truly, one hell of a basket case in those teen years.

So, as is usual for most teenagers, I had a streak of gross intellectualism born out of fear. I was genuinely unsure of how to feel about certain things because I was sure I couldn’t understand them. I often pre-supposed what bands I had only heard of would actually sound like, which at times was unfair to my first impression. But worst of all, it was as if I thought there was a physical line to be crossed with enjoying music and film, as if when one crossed this line through exposure to the “correct” records and movies he or she would technically be an “expert”, or at least an “adult fan” or something. Of course, that’s not reality – that’s not how things work - it’s just easier for the human mind to concoct this kind of absurdity in order to avoid embracing the universe’s distinct penchant for chaos.

At this time, my friends and I had started really making fun of Danzig a lot. I mean, A LOT. We loved the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig (probably in that order) just like any decent American, but we still wanted to lampoon it/him too. Among other things, we would read the lyric sheets and just howl at what our young minds thought were totally ridiculous words and ideas. WELL, one day, while I was shopping at TRASH by myself, and in conversation with Malcolm ended up uttering a disparaging remark about Mr. Danzig. Malcolm turned to me quietly and inquired what I meant by it, and not in a disagreeable way either. I built up my cynicism quickly and said something like:

“Well, yeah, but you know Danzig’s a crazy egomaniac!”

Malcolm, who was likely upset by my onset of teenaged negativity, retained full composure, looked me in the eye, then spoke a sentence - calmly and plainly – that still echoes in my head to this day:

“Well, I think he’s really one of the great songwriters of our time.”

WOW. That shut me right up. What an amazing notion! What an honest and naked thing to say … I knew I had been totally schooled, and it felt good. But it was kinda tough too – I mean, the artists that I really, in-my-heart thought were geniuses weren’t often the “popular” choice (Napoleon the XIV or Andy Milligan would be good examples), and therefore all of those unpopular faves would have to suffer a rebranding-with-humor; to “justify” their enjoyment … you know, like GUILTY PLEASURES (EEECHHH!).

The point is not that you HAVE TO like Danzig – but, that if you do, it’s OK to just LIKE IT. You can find true beauty in ANYTHING, something doesn’t have to be in a museum in order for you to be moved by it. Hell, it could be the way your trashcan looks when it’s full, it could be a cartoon you watched as a kid, ANYTHING. The only rule is that there are no rules, AT ALL. So, of course it’s easy to laugh at Danzig. Because he wasn’t holding back, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve. There are words and stories of extreme natures in his lyrics, and I definitely think they’re successful the way they are. Some are perfect. How great would the Misfits really be without the absolutely kitschy Horror obsession? Not nearly as great. It often takes doing something potentially embarrassing or unpopular to have a lasting impact. It takes a fearless person to laugh in the face of what’s “normal” or accepted and create truly original, dark art that’s readily disposable as junk to most people. For the world of Horror, Danzig should be considered a Saint.

So, now that we’ve cleared up the nakedity of mind that it requires to be a fully operational member of my twisted tribe, let’s get to the meat of this blather - I find myself in parallel with Danzig, because:

I
LOVE
HORROR!

I really do! I need it. I depend on it, and if it weren’t for Saints like Poe, Romero, Coye, and of course Danzig, I can pretty safely say that I probably would have committed an act of actual horror on the world. Instead of just having a lot of fun with all that darkness, I likely would have let it consume me.

Horror is my escape, my relief; it’s my fucking religion. I pray to Dracula, Frankenstein and ghouls, I giggle with grave-robbers and I’m married to the Macabre. It’s not a joke for me. I’m brought to tears by Tod Browning’s DRACULA, I weep at the beauty of KING KONG and Lovecraft’s written word can literally exhilarate me to the point of physical tingling. With Horror, I’ve managed to find a place where I actually FIT. A place where I not only belong, but a place where I’m welcome. Wanted. Cared for. In the deeper pits of my thought I hypothosize that that’s what Lon Chaney was doing. He was caring for generations beyond his own life. Chaney was painfully conscious of that dark sliver of humanity, the needy, the meek – the “ugly”. Chaney gave of himself – the cost of which was often massive amounts of pain and discomfort – and he did it for them, for US. For the hurt, for the desperate, for the lonely ones - he did it for ALL of us watching who in herself or himself saw the Phantom, the Hunchback, Alonzo the Armless, and 997 other beautiful faces. And, as grand a statement as it may be, this is an aspect I try to bring to things I create, either through performing music or writing.

I just can’t help it – I just see SO CLEARLY the need to travel to dark places, to unknown worlds of nite that remove me from the sickening and mundane nature of modern existence. The obligations and compromises of “reality” leave me DESPERATE, SALIVATING for removal from my surroundings … I’m not ashamed to say it either. The world has a lot of remarkable beauty to it, but it’s simply not enough for me. I need more, I can’t be grounded to this world at all times and not lose my mind. I need to go further out, to Fantasy and to Horror.

One of my favorite quotations is from musician Patti Smith:

“After MAD, drugs were nothing.”

In order to save space, I won’t blab about the sheer brilliance of that summation for too long, let me just say it’s probably one of the most acute observations ever realized by a human and we’ll move on. The point is this: it wouldn’t even make sense to argue that drugs (as well as any other thing that isn’t art) hold a fraction of the power that art does when it comes to expanding one’s mind. Music, poetry, paintings, films, literature - they’re all psychoactive substances of potentially endless impact. They can be so powerful on the mind that the sensation of departure from reality will always be unmatched.

The forced distances of imaginative possibility that one receives from works like Lovecraft’s “The Color Out Of Space”, Clark Ashton Smith’s “Abominations of Yondo”, and Arthur Machen’s “The White People” will never be comparable to anything besides other works of art. Works like these, the paintings of Goya, the truly great Horror films, EC Comics, and an infinite list of other significant works, have the power to take you away – in a way that only the darker elements, only Horror, can. I’ll leave you with a particularly touching poem, featured in Weird Tales in the 40’s. It was written by the then 17 year old Robert Nelson, who very sadly took his own life not long after writing this. It’s a poem that in three short verses touches the very heart of Horror, and longingly embraces it in the dark.

See you under the Tomb,

-Mike Hunchback

UNDER THE TOMB
Robert Nelson

Dread beings grope and sport in gory lakes,
A foul mist creeps and feeds on swollen slugs:
From beds of perfumed plants squirm fetid snakes,
And like a flower grown from sable drugs,
A moon of steel drips blood upon a sky
Darkened by what mad phantoms prophesy.

By this hath ceased and passed, and now in that
Mephitic, crumbling woodland 'neath the tomb
The dead sup with the dead o'er flowing vat,
And searing candles cleanse the rotting gloom;
And they who stood in sorrow's joy and pain,
Tread now through hell's ecstatical refrain.

Far still beneath, where bloated babes are kept
In glacial rooms, and skulls are lit as lamps
To guide through life beyond, and where are swept
Green veils of oozing slime and deadly damps,
There is an everlasting resonance
Pealed by the tomb in glad deliverance.

DRINKING AT THE MOVIES, by JULIA WERTZ ... BOOK REVIEW!

2010-11-12T22:23:00.005-05:00

Easily the best new feature-length comic that's come out this year, “Drinking at the Movies” heralds something shocking for the modern world of comics – the return of that fully-distilled emotional nudity that made the latter-undergrounds and 90's alternatives so legendary. It was an element of many popular comics that was easy to make fun of, and by the late 90's it seemed like everyone had copied the structure of self-introspective books like “HATE”, certain amazing pieces in “Eightball” and “Peep Show”. However, without the manic neurosis of these books, the end result was simply a xeroxed sea of sad, tepid “woe is me” junk. In retrospect, it's as if the style died out for a newer wave, one of falsely-intellectual absurdity. People seemed afraid to bear their true feelings in the major output of comics this past decade, instead creating either acid-influenced nonsense so abstract it could avoid any serious scrutiny, or even worse comics that were basically supposed to be humorous simply because they weren't funny at all.

As with current mainstream film, television, and literature, indie comics seemed 95% terrified of being GENUINE. Having an unaltered, perhaps ugly slice of reality became unpopular – and it's a goddamn shame, too. Art's potential is often related to just how genuine it is. Peter Bagge's tale of Buddy Bradley (from Neat Stuff through to the recent HATE Annuals) is as classic and as wonderful a story as any piece of literature that America has yet produced, and Justin Green's “Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary” (1970) is every bit as affecting as Salinger's “Catcher In the Rye”. It's the genuine aspect of these works that makes them excel; at their core they are ONLY truth mixed with twisted, vibrant story-telling. Even the most fantastic elements become believable because they're not presented like just facts on a piece of paper; the reader is made to believe they are some insane character's version of the absolute truth.

So, the comics-world probably wasn't ready for Julia Wertz – her truthful, self-deprecating adventures seem to begin with the fact that she feels far removed from anything resembling a “respected” 20-something cartoonist. One gets the sense she begins her projects by staring at a blank page, pen in hand, thinking for a few moments; then says aloud “fuck it” and draws what that voice in the back of her head is begging her to keep secret. The funny and endearing nature of Wertz's comics bring back floods of memories from works by artists like Joe Matt, Mary Fleener, Lynda Barry, and of course Diane Noomin (why isn't she the most famous cartoonist in the world, by the way?) as well as the previously mentioned Bagge and Green.

Like the most talented filmmakers and authors, the best comic artists realize their medium and exploit it appropriately. It's one of the stronger elements of Wertz's work here – the story, while technically being a 200 page narrative about moving to NYC, mal-adjusting into alcoholism and self-loathing, and then eventually overcoming some really huge, crippling fears (and not in some unbelievable, TV-movie style either); is peppered throughout with various different breaks in style, time, and most welcome of all, the narrative itself. Wertz will derail her tale without notice, and all of a sudden Sherlock and Watson are there, following around her escaped brain trying to figure out why cartoon Julia makes such poor choices. Time-travel/flashbacks, MAD-esque “pros and cons”, total fantasy; it's ALL possible here. This story, which is told as best as it could possibly be told, could only be told in comics form. In “Drinking at the Movies” there's even mention of “Fart Party” (Wertz's first two books are under this title) being turned into a TV show or movie. While the humor and basics of the story are applicable to other mediums, it would be impossible to duplicate the essence of “Drinking at the Movies” because it's so perfectly rooted in its awesome comic-ness. Visually, Wertz has established her own style that (wonderfully) seems to stem from 90's and 2000's alternative comics and TV cartoons. It houses the humor (and softens the pathos) in a way that makes all its elements seem inseparable, like Beavis and Butthead, South Park, or the Simpsons.

“Drinking At the Movies” is refreshing, it comes off almost as a semi-unconscious throwback to what many would call a hey-day of creativity in comics. But it's also vibrantly new. The nasty social-networking/ego-porn that saturates so many young people nowadays is neither absent nor preached about, it's present and not ignored, but never the focus. The time and place is very accurate (Brooklyn late 2000's), and the portrayals of the types within its population are all on point. For those who live in the areas she writes about and draws it's almost eerie. These comics will be a valuable time capsule of human ridiculousness in years to come. 50 years from now, formerly-very-cool grandparents will slam down a copy of "Drinking at the Movies" in front of their grandchildren and be able to say "I'M NOT LYING, SEE? BROOKLYN WAS ACTUALLY LIKE THIS!"

UNAVAILABLE AND AGITATED

2010-07-15T13:40:00.001-04:00

I have been gone for so, so long. I'm sorry.

But I will be back. I'm at a new job, and I'm without time or a scanner.

But I'm getting one ... soon!

-Mike

The DEATH of WONDER?

2010-04-28T14:55:00.003-04:00

"INTRINSIC" - what a great word. It means "Of the essential nature of a thing". I obsess over the intrinsic value of many things - the surface, while tangible, is potentially misleading. What are the elements of a thing that REALLY make that thing THAT THING? Paul McCartney has a great quote - once, after being asked incessantly about the Beatles during an interview he said this: "The Beatles were a very good band". WOW. Now, on the surface it may appear humorously simple. But think about it - what does it MEAN to be a good band? Well, there's an endless list of little things that count for a lot- and they can even change 100% depending on the artist you're talking about. The answer of course lies in the intrinsic nature of being a good band, and even more gloriously in that there is no exact definition for the term! I won't pose here, I'm giving it to you straight - the answer is mystical. It's cosmic, and it's beyond moment-long human understanding.

I encounter anti-creative people all the time. Most of them have gone to college, and perhaps the MOST anti-creative of which went to art school. I got into a discussion with a young woman recently that nearly bowled me over. Referring to Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana I stated that: [the 90's] was perhaps the last time we (America) would have "real" music played on the (top 40) radio, and that that was a very sad thing. I claimed that Nirvana was important, because it proved that audiences ultimately want the work of individuals, of artists, and not music produced by committee (as nearly all music on mainstream radio is now). I claimed that the music industry thrives on controlling the artists it creates (or appropriates) because people that make music from their own hearts/minds/gut have proven to be thoroughly non-understanding when it comes to what their label thinks would be a "good direction" - OBVIOUSLY. I said major record labels do not, in any way, attempt to find the most creative artists they can; to which she replied "yes they do - they love that!". She went on to explain that record labels would love for another Nirvana to come along so they could be snatched up and make them lots of money. I barely knew what to say!

I see it like this - Nirvana marked the failure of controlled, marketable music. The music on the radio by the late 80's was SO homogenized and interchangeable (and again, by committee) that once Nirvana was made available to people, they freaked out. Like if you had someone trapped in your basement and only fed them your boogers for 5 years then offered them a HUGE Banana Split. As real as this factor was, major (and minor nowadays) record labels are simply NOT interested in finding people who are working hard at being creative on their own terms. Major record labels believe that THEY KNOW what people want and have made a business of shoving it in people's faces AND THEN covering enormous losses by gouging the unknowing consumer. Through red tape and bullshit, they've found a way to keep a failing system afloat.

After I attempted to convey these logistics, she replied, "well, they were just guys with guitars". Now, I'm quite aware of the literal fact that Nirvana were in fact a band made up from three (or four) men just like any other band that came down the pipe - BUT can one seriously say there wasn't something special about Nirvana? Or the Beatles? As much as these are indeed two groups that I love very much, I think I can safely say that there was absolute genius in what these artists did, just like ANY remembered artist from history. I don't look at Da Vinci's paintings all the time, but when I see the Mona Lisa I don't say "Eh, he was just a guy with a paintbrush".

Was Houdini just "a guy who could get out of a lot of stuff"? Was Thomas Edison just "a guy who thought of some stuff"? God-fucking-damnit NO, NO they WERE NOT - they were geniuses! Artists with visions SO big that a whole lifetime wasn't enough! Do people really have NO understanding of Wonder anymore? Wonder is the KEY to being truly open-minded. Wonder is the miracle that mindless, frightened losers attempt to squash when they see it in us, the lonely few prone to actually using our imaginations. I know I said it before, but I really mean it - as I get older I want to distance myself as far as possible from the type that claim intellectual superiority simply because they look DOWN on EVERYTHING. Were there people during Tchaikovsky's time that said "You know Swan Lake isn't THAT cool ..." I'm sure there were. And if ANY of the creative output of these naysayers is available to read today, I'll bet it looks ... kinda stupid. Or perhaps like they were trying too hard. Or maybe like they were simply a fucking idiot that didn't know a damn thing. I'm more and more concerned with how my actions will look given the perspective of future history, and less and less so with the peer pressure of the present.

Can EVERYTHING be boiled down to the cold-hard facts and stuck under a microscope just so some fearful little speck with some paperwork on his wall can say "Eh - not that great". FUCK YOU! It would be less blatantly obvious if some of these cynical folks were creating important, real art - but they're not. Smug equals scared. Here again we have the destructive nature of the pseudo-intellectual mind seeping into different aspects of human creativity, now that it's been going on for YEARS there are poor souls who know nothing else; and go to "school" to back up their belief - in NOTHING.

MADNESS! Roger Corman Intrudes on ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES

2009-12-21T14:39:00.013-05:00

You’ve really got to hand it to Anthology Film Archives on this one – they’re the only ones who are crazy enough and cool enough to host this mammoth thirteen-film Roger Corman retrospective, easily one of the best NYC film programs all year. One of my favorite NY theatres, Anthology is an actual film archive as well as regularly operating theatre. Their film selection leans mostly toward the experimental and avant-garde (it was founded by some of the field’s heavies) but they’re also relentless when it comes to those who produce independent films outside of the art community, even when they may be as bent as the likes of outsider mavericks like Jim Van Bebber (DEADBEAT AT DAWN, THE MANSON FAMILY) or in this case, “indie”-before-there-was-such-a-thing impresario Roger Corman.

Ultra-sexy Barbara Steele in the excellent PIT AND THE PENDULUM.

Of all 60’s and 70’s exploitation filmmakers, Corman is probably the most famous. In a way he almost serves as a figurehead for “cheap movie directors”, a title he deserves for a myriad of valid reasons. In addition to this title, perhaps because of his cable and video offerings in the 80’s and 90’s (I’m having BLOODFIST flashbacks, WHOA … !), he is also well-known for making “bad” movies. Although some films to Corman’s directorial credit may be considerable as drek, nothing can take away the power and genuine craftsmanship of his best work. The recent Anthology program entitled “Roger Corman: Poe and Beyond!” represents some of this work, including almost all of the “Corman/Poe Cycle” (absent is the superb HAUNTED PALACE (1963), actually based on Lovecraft’s writing; I say it still would have been nice to see in this line-up) as well as a smattering of other Corman classics, mostly from AIP’s hey-day in the 60’s.

Although Corman worked on small budgets and had massive time constraints (AIP produced an average of nearly six films per year) he wasn’t a film director who looked down on the medium like many other Exploitation film directors did. In fact, with his distribution company New World, Corman imported many European films ranging from simply saleable to crucially classic (Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS and Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO falling into the latter category). He was a fanatical film fan, consistently enamored by cinema and not afraid to utilize this affection when directing. A fine example would be the Bergman-esque touches on MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964). Widely considered the best of the Cycle, it showcases several of AIP’s strongest links: the clash of the gothic and the psychedelic, captured brilliantly here in the cinematography of future director Nicholas Roeg; Vincent Price’s studied cruelty in the role of Prince Prospero – a truly ideal part for Price, who’s class blends with murderous nastiness that would’ve no doubt delighted Poe himself; and a solid script that spans more Poe than just MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (the lesser-known Hop-Frog tale is prominent). Charles Beaumont (one of the three writers of the Twilight Zone and also this program’s PREMATURE BURIAL, 1962) and R. Wright Campbell (who wrote the superb Lon Chaney biopic MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, 1957) collaborated on the script. Another writer, the legend Richard Matheson, penned the Cycle’s HOUSE OF USHER (1960), THE RAVEN (1963), TALES OF TERROR (1962), and PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) and the Robert Towne scripted TOMB OF LIGEA (1964) completes the Cycle entries in Anthology’s program, and the consistency of all these films is fascinating. Floyd Crosby was the cinematographer of most of these films and the look is always wonderful and a little insane. The creativity of his camerawork blends the stark almost documentary feel of someone at the forefront of his artistic awareness with some rather madcap camera wielding and positioning.

X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963) is a cool, bizarre flexing of Crosby’s massive talent, from peering thru flesh and organs to undressing an entire dance party, from hospitals to the seedy carnival circuit to the bright-hot desert chase at the film’s conclusion, Crosby displays lush perspective and color for all sorts of settings and tones. The beyond-impressive low budget effects really kick in when THE MAN (with X-Ray Eyes)’s vision starts to intensify further and he can see through things SO much that his vision is reduced to insanity-inducing splotches of colors, bone, and blinding light.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959) is an invigorating achievement. It’s a small budget horror story fueled by excellent acting, madcap characters, and a brilliant script (by AIP staffer Charles B. Griffith). With A BUCKET OF BLOOD, something has been made out of nothing, an achievement Roger Corman accomplished many times over. The low budget film is cinema’s answer to the one act play, and like the one-act play there’s no reason that a low budget film can’t pack in just as much drama, excitement, emotion and intensity as its heavily funded contemporary.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD is the story of Walter Paisley (Dick Miller’s best performance), an almost-retarded coffee shop bus boy who spends his time daydreaming and trying to fit in amongst the fancy artiste-types he serves coffee to. The setting is a mad and cinematic stereotype of a 1950’s beatnik dive, an even cartoonish backdrop. Poets and jazzbos, painters and bikers - everyone in Walter’s world looks down on him. Even those who like him treat him as an inferior – including the girl he loves. It doesn’t stop him from smiling though, or believing that he too could be an artist. One night in a fit of frustration, Walter accidentally kills his landlady’s cat. He takes some molding clay and does the only think he can think to do – hide the cat as a work of art, which of course rockets him to art-stardom.

As Walter soaks in this undue fame he begins to distance himself with the ideals he had as a failure, and then things go wonderfully, bloodily wrong. It’s absolutely one of Corman’s finest moments. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is A BUCKET OF BLOOD’s contemporary in many ways, and it’s also the only other film in this series that showcases what Corman was doing in the 1950’s. Even in it’s silliness and impoverished appearance the creativity does shine through in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (the remake is great evidence) and almost shockingly it remains a unique, budget-less wonder.

All of Corman’s films for AIP were genre pictures except for one. Called the lone “serious” picture in the Corman/AIP canon, it performed poorly at the box-office and both were scared enough of not turning a profit again to ensure only genre outings from then out. And it’s a crime! This lone exception is THE INTRUDER (1962), a harrowing tale of a spineless racist instigator named Adam Cramer (played by William Shatner).

He arrives by bus to a small southern town soon after desegregation laws have passed that will integrate blacks and whites in American public schools. Using this as an opportunity to stir up the townspeople enough to create a Ku Klux Klan following, Cramer travels the south doing this “duty” for modern American white supremacy, getting the Klan going wherever he can. As ugly as it sounds, THE INTRUDER is perhaps the most attractive film of the whole set. It’s a brazen low-budget take on serious social concerns, and Corman, armed with a razor sharp script by Twilight Zone alum/AIP staff screenwriter Charles Beaumont (based on a his paperback), delivers a powerful piece of raw filmmaking that seems to inspire raving praise from all who cross it’s stark, black and white path (seriously, check out the User Comments on IMDB). THE INTRUDER spits in the face of average filmgoer expectation on all fronts – not only did Corman execute a perfect and lyrical parable proving the gross injustices of prejudice and fear, but William Shatner, whom laymen seem to consider a ham, shines so darkly as the sick-minded racist instigator that many a pea-brained Shatner-detractor are transformed after experiencing perhaps the finest role of his career. THE INTRUDER has chunks of painful realness that make it stand out from so many similarly themed but less effective films - in the beginning of the film the town’s newspaper editor is quite distasteful towards the idea of his daughter going to school with blacks, but wants to go along with the school integration because, as he says, “it’s the law”. It’s Shatner’s Cramer that incites the violence that convinces the same man that racism itself is an act of violence that only begets more violence. Charles Beaumont makes an appearance as the school principal, and many Corman AIP regulars flesh out the townsfolk.

It was a rare batch of films, and it was an absolute treat to see them given appropriate status at Anthology Film Archives. Roger Corman gets a lot of credit for a lot of different things – he gets credit for being absurdly prolific and for setting some trends in the world of pop culture filmmaking. He gets credit for being a hack and stealing ideas from both art house and mainstream films, and he wrongly gets credit for simply being talentless. It’s quite welcome and all-to-rare to hear his name in association with the thing he really was passionate about – making good movies. It’s something he did quite a few times, and finally, thanks to Anthology, Roger Corman got some of the credit he deserves.

"BAD BIOLOGY" / "DEADGIRL"

2009-10-12T10:35:00.031-04:00

'WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS THIS?'

They’re both two of the more anticipated horror films of the last year, but DEADGIRL and BAD BIOLOGY are from very different places. While the dark hype surrounding DEADGIRL was priming horror hounds for the film’s intense, “Cronenberg-like” message, BAD BIOLOGY marked the directorial return of Frank Henenlotter, who’s films BASKET CASE, FRANKENHOOKER, and BRAIN DAMAGE are widely-respected masterpieces of trashy, smutty, New York City horror.

After watching DEADGIRL, I thought I liked it quite a bit. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I sort of convinced myself I had seen “one of the better horror films of 2009”, at least. It wasn’t until days later when I saw BAD BIOLOGY that I realized how wrong I was.

DEADGIRL tells the tale of two young, directionless men who find a near-dead girl in bondage in an abandoned mental institution. Knowing about this much beforehand, I readied myself for what I imagined would be a nearly unwatchable horror show that would hammer home the terrifying detachment of modern sexuality, particularly in males. Yes, it’s a theme Cronenberg has explored (mostly successfully), and one that if updated properly could make a shocking and even important modern horror film. DEADGIRL leaves us with something else however. The film’s message comes through clearly, but filmmakers Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel took too few risks to really convince us of it (I do wonder if Trent Haaga's script bears exact resemblance to the final product) – there's a consciousness of good taste here, and I mean that in the worst possible way. It’s too clean and slick to evoke the true grittiness of the level of human depravity at which people keep others for unwilling sex slaves. The relationship between the two lead boys is thin, and with some adjustment that could have been the glue that held DEADGIRL together. The protagonists would have stood a chance against being boring if they were simply more real, which would have made them far more disturbing and offensive. I’m reminded of a few other (much better) films, Vincent Pereira’s 1997 masterpiece “A Better Place”, Otto Preminger’s “Compulsion” and R.L. Frost’s 1965 definitive Roughie “The Defilers”. “Compulsion” is based on the true story of Leopold and Loeb (two teenage boys who tried to literally get away with murder because they felt the were superior to other humans) and the portrayal of the “in the grey” male relationship that occurs so often in real life is one of "Compulsion"'s most successful devices. Pereira’s “A Better Place” utilizes this aspect and magnifies it with brutal high school realism while “The Defilers” is an all-out smut fest, where everything goes wrong and the dialogue sizzles with the cheapness of a 60’s porno novel. DEADGIRL lies in the murky netherworld between these approaches, stretched thin in its efforts to not offend and offend at the same time. Views of sex as well as the act itself are at a unique moment in time. People train themselves to want what they’re told, others hide what they know they want for their entire lives and although no one is actually satisfied, everyone is vehemently sure that they’re right. Tearing down these kinds of false conventions is perfect for making viewers squirm, and it burns that the opportunity was wasted here. A film with this insane and nasty of a concept shouldn’t be pulling punches, it should be going over the top completely at all times.

DEADGIRL isn't terrible, don’t get me wrong. But we’re dealing with a film that basically lies to us about how much guts it has – and with a brazen mission to provoke intelligent thought in its pornography-obsessed, mostly-male audience, you’re gonna need a lot more guts.

It was in the midst of watching BAD BIOLOGY that I realized DEADGIRL's flatness. I’m not exaggerating when I say BAD BIOLOGY is a masterpiece. A new film so glorious in its ignorance of the rotten state of cinema today that it will startle fans into realizing how good, and how original, an independent horror movie can still be. Everything about BAD BIOLOGY defies the sad, contemporary model for horror that’s infected both Hollywood drek and the so-called “indies” nowadays. Now more than ever we are exposed to horror films that attempt purposefully to offend us, the filmmakers of which have long forgotten that art can only be truly offensive when it is backed up by a genuine idea. In this respect BAD BIOLOGY, like Henenlotter’s other films, excels – every scene, every line, and every concept is born out of ACTUALLY HAVING bad taste. These guys aren’t faking it, they’re not TRYING to think of “offensive” ideas, they’re trying (and succeeding) to simply come up with GOOD ideas. It just so happens that BAD BIOLOGY’s filmmakers’ best ideas are bat-shit, jaw-droppingly, laugh-out-loud SICK! Henenlotter teamed up with rapper R.A. The Rugged Man (who I hope will have a very long career making films) to deliver this work of true sickness and depravity in a time when horror films desperate need it.

The intensity of Henenlotter’s vision is completely unique, and shockingly he’s somehow managed to make another perfect installment to his oeuvre, even though his last film was “Basket Case 3”, a long 16 years ago. The trademarks of his best work are all over BAD BIOLOGY: physical deformity, huge sexual problems, incredible over-the-top perverse dialogue and of course – unrequited love. Underneath all the flesh and blood Henenlotter always has some sort of heartache and bittersweet, missed romantic opportunity.

Make no mistake about it; BAD BIOLOGY is a passionate work of art. Aided in no small part by The Rugged Man’s understanding of the genre, an element that pairs so well with Henenlotter’s world that the viewer is lovingly barraged with a constant stream of wonderfully whacked-out concepts and scenarios. The opening scene and shot had me instantly glued to the screen – medium shot of an elegant blonde girl in a crowded dive bar … we’re looking right at her, she’s beautiful; in a pretty dress. Her voice over kicks in –

“I was born with seven clits. Or at least seven that the doctors know about …”

As she sizes up the males in the bar she fills us in on her story … Born with excessive and highly stimulating female genitalia, Jennifer desperately hunts for sex nightly; and as she tells her tale we begin to sense how deranged she’s become from her situation. She spies a suitable piece of meat in a leather jacket and catches his eye. He smiles at her, knowing he’s going to get laid, and in perfect faux-shyness she quickly breaks their eye contact and stares at the ground, smiling coyly. Voice over again –

“Got ‘im!”

In less than half an hour he’s dead, of course. The rest I won’t give away!

Jennifer is an insane, sociopathic sex fiend, destined to never find “the one” … enter Batz, a nervous loner with a penile affliction that would without a doubt peak Jennifer’s interest. Slowly, as both have empty, loveless one-night-stands, their paths inch toward each other. Both characters are so totally damaged that it becomes quite romantic to imagine the two actually finding each other. Jennifer’s obsessive attitude over her individual connection with God and the future of mankind lead to some of the film’s tastiest bits, and Batz’s conversations/fights with his mad member are classic Henenlotter. Jennifer is played by Charlee Danielson, in her first starring role. Danielson has enormous potential, reminding me somewhat of Mira Sorvino in “Mighty Aphrodite” and even Sissy Spacek in “Badlands” (with all those great voice-overs she does). Sneed, whom producer The Rugged Man apparently found on myspace, is perfect as an antisocial 20-something New Yorker, hardly looking anyone in the eye, pushing out his words in thick and nervous New York-ese. Disregard any reviews that you see that claim BAD BIOLOGY’s acting is bad, although I guess I’m not surprised – I mean, “Surrogates” grossed over 7 million dollars this weekend, so most people are clearly IDIOTS when it comes to what good acting is. BAD BIOLOGY has PLENTY of acting chops actually, and Charlee Danielson and Anthony Sneed both bring their roles to life with endearing and hilarious awkwardness (Sneed shouting “I was the only fifteen year old in the world who couldn’t JERK OFF!” is a highlight).

As a filmgoer, I needed Henenlotter back in my life. I needed to be reminded that as a self-respecting horror fanatic I didn’t have to settle for DEADGIRL. I didn’t have to settle for anything less than the realest of real, and the nittiest of gritty. The possibilities really are endless, and not everything has been done before, not even close. I'm reminded of something Mark Mothersbaugh once said about the illusion of freedom in America - we're told that we have the Freedom of Choice, but the choice is between Coke and Pepsi. He was right, and now this structure has existed for so long that most of us believe that it's actually "a choice" - of course, it's not. So don't believe the lies. Horror should exist without limits, without boundries and without good taste - and BAD BIOLOGY has NONE of these!

The Less You Know Dept.

2009-06-30T13:58:00.000-04:00

Excited, obsessive, and sixteen - my high school friends and I had to be the most passionate and off-the-wall kids to ever haunt the hallways of Middletown South. By the end of 9^th grade I think I had inspected every Horror, Sci-Fi, Cult, and Foreign section of every video store in Monmouth County (no joke). Whether it was a Peter Sellers/Blake Edwards vehicle, something by Jean-Luc Godard, or a 70’s George Romero film that you can only get as a bootleg, I just had to see it. I remember forcing a roomful of people to watch Murnau’s Nosferatu (an scoreless VHS version no less) at 2:00 AM one morning. I remember watching North By Northwest in high school and thinking I was going to throw up because of the intensity of the airplane sequence. I remember my elation and bewilderment after watching Badlands on VHS, then rushing over to the VCR in order to rewind the tape and watch it again - immediately.

For me, it was and is all part of this grand notion I got in my head as a kid that "I KNOW NOTHING". Now don't take that in a negative, self-deprecating way - think of it as enlightening; or progressive even. As deeply 'into' things as I get, I can never shake the feeling that I'm only scratching the surface. And that's where the fun is. Most people are unconsciously against this (while unfortunately some are consciously against it), and very quick to state their uninformed opinion. Not knowing everything is an exciting feeling, for as intense as a piece of art can be to me, I will always have a quiet inner-dialogue telling me "if THIS is out there - and you didn't know about it before ... well, shit - anything's possible!"

When I was young and I would read Michael J. Weldon’s essential ‘Psychotronic Video’ magazine, the descriptions of (and even just the titles of) some of the films would strike such a chord of fascination in me, it was like there were entire worlds of meticulously executed art out there; art that was SO dark, or SO intense, or SO wild that nothing I had seen before was like it. Getting to those “worlds”, as well as paying attention to the journey, is where we learn things.

Other people I've encountered seem to have some sort of (self-imposed) WALL OF COOL in front of them that not only preserves their cool exterior - but also creates a surface impenetrable to all things fascinating. That's a waste of life. And to put it bluntly (and to paraphrase Harlan Ellison), that's what makes someone "one of the slaves".

Once, in high school, before I had figured much of this stuff out, my friend Jason and I were discussing (as we often did) favorite films. Jason mentioned The Usual Suspects. He admitted to its popularity (this was the 90's, folks) and then said something that's really stuck with me:

"I get physically affected at the end. It's like a feeling washes over me, and it happens every time I watch it. I can't argue with that feeling."

His admission to undecided adoration was eye-opening - how much do we choose what we tell people we like? The question is always on my mind. Although much of its usage is light, I believe the term "guilty pleasure" to be quite insidious. While it can be humorous to refer to things as a "guilty pleasure" the idea that we are afraid of exposing our true feelings about art to each other is far too real and horrifying for me to accept usage of that phrase. People crave intellectual superiority over art and over many of the things they see. People often want to break down the things that are presented to them in such a way as to prove that -

A) They know exactly what they're looking at.

and:

B) It's just not that good.

or, alternate for B):

C) It's stupid.

Now, as anyone can see, when this WALL of COOL is up, and A, B and/or C are in effect, there can be no feelings of enchantment or wonder had by the spectator. People's self-importance and fear have blended into a sickening muck of ignorance. For it's the truly ridiculous and even evil things that get the OK - look at where the film industry is, or turn on your TV (if you dare) - THESE are the things that the masses approve! Worst of all is what happens to art that is the work of true passion. Great art, art that the artist was desperate to make, art that has profound personal significance; is often the main target of this moronic, pseudo-intellectual behavior. It is the individuality and uniqueness of things that make them an easy target for the Terrified Mind.

The Terrified Minds will tell you “it's OK to express yourself - as long as it is the same as everyone else's expression.”

Bullshit.

Total Crap.

Nonsense.

Call it what you will, but it makes me MAD.

You don’t have to be a part of it; and you don’t have to help those who want you for a slave. Help yourself. Help those in whom you see authenticity and substance. The genuine are persecuted now and desperately need validation and protection. Our society’s chance at birthing another Thomas Edison or Ray Bradbury stands in direct opposition to our ability to build another shopping mall; filled with the same stores, that are filled with the same crap, as every – other – stupid – mall in the country.

The world is rejecting beautiful things and burying them because it is too afraid to think for itself.

And, to quote Harlan Ellison again: “It’s a dumb world.”

And like I said – You don’t have to be a part of it.