Merry Christmas, Stanley Wood!

Stanley Wood, thrilled as hell to be photographed with Santa Claus, December, 2006.

December, 2006; Santa Ana, CA.

Cheap Video Reviews: Samurai: Reincarnation

Samurai: Reincarnation

Samurai: Reincarnation opens with Chapter 'Hell' - Part 1 where we get a history lesson about a battle between Christians and Shoguns 350 years ago in which the Shoguns killed 20,000 Christians and then cut a lot of their heads in half so they could claim they killed 45,000.

Samurai entertainer.

Cut to a Samurai celebration party, and it's not your typical party scene.  Everybody is sitting around quietly by a fire, still wearing their armor. The entertainment is a guy doing tai chi with a sword. For a celebration, it’s pretty low energy; even with the inclusion of decapitated Christian head trophies hanging in the background, occasionally illuminated by lightning flashes even though it isn’t raining.

Out of nowhere, one of the heads defies gravity, zooms across the room and into the bonfire, which emits a shower of sparks. When the smoke clears, all the samurai are either dead or unconscious. The only guy left standing is our tai chi swordsman. He casually strolls off the stage like it's just another day at the office. Oh, and he pets one of the Christian heads, because why not?

Petting a Christian head.

Now, the guy begins speaking, in badly dubbed English. It is apparent he is possessed by a spirit and is not the same guy who was doing tai chi with a sword earlier. Now he is just a vessel for a ghost. Turns out, he's a fallen Christian, reincarnated as a samurai, and he's got vengeance on his mind.  He begins crying and wailing about how he will avenge the fallen Christians, "As of tonight, I shall part with you, my brothers...So be it, I swear! Hear me in Heaven! From this moment on, I shall abandon you! There shall be no brotherly love! I shall do what you failed to do! I shall wreck a vengeance on the entire world"!

Chapter 'Hell' - Part 2 takes us to "Kumamoto - In the Realm of Higo"; specifically at, "Taisho-Ji - Lord Hosokawa's Family Temple". The reincarnated samurai (I think his name is Shito) is conducting an occult ceremony.

Shito's occult ceremony.

Shito's got a woman's body lying on the floor, and he's channeling the spirit of Hosokawa's dead wife. After the possessed body settles down, they have a chat,

Shito:"I have come here to fulfill your pathetic prayer to be reborn in the world of the living".

Woman:"Oh, you ignorant fool" [laughs].

They go on and on, then Shito comments, "Your reputation for chastity is dimmed by having lived days of carnage with your husband". Days of Carnage!

Lady Hosokawa as she was before.

Their dialogue goes back and forth, and Shito drops lines like, 'Your reputation for chastity is dimmed by having lived days of carnage with your husband.' Yep, days of carnage! Shito knows Lady Hosokawa pretty well because he adds, 'You were obliged to die in a most reluctant manner.' Cue a flashback where Lord Hosokawa is upset because his Christian wife stopped sleeping with him, so he arranged her fiery demise.

Chapter 'Hell' - Part 3 consists of a master swordsman sitting in his samurai armor lamenting that he has, "Nothing to do but wait until age 62 to die of old age", since nobody can kill him in battle.

After an extensive rambling monologue, the master swordsman is approached by Shito and Lady Hosokawa; who are going around reincarnating people into a private army. When approached about the prospect of reincarnation, the master swordsman swings his sword then falls down for no apparent reason. Shito then reincarnates him. Maybe they should just call this, "possession," rather than "reincarnation." 

Finally, to end everything on an up note, a guy wearing an eyepatch barges in and disrupts everything, then leaves.

An apparent misogynist.

Chapter 'Hell' - Part 4: By this point in the film, I start realizing that all the chapters of this movie will be "Hell" chapters. Maybe it was intended to be a trilogy with this film being the "Hell" segment. Well, it is that.

This chapter opens with a guy passing two women on a staircase. He says, "Wait", under his breath then suddenly murders both of them out of the blue. Then we see everything return to as it was before. The murder only occurred in the man's mind. He is, apparently, a misogynist.

Murder victim.

Things go from bad to weird fast as a veiled woman approaches from the left. She is laughing at the misogynist, "Ha Ha Ha!! Why are you always dreaming of killing females"?

She opens her veil to reveal that she either has a ghost head or is wearing a ghost mask; then her voice booms, like an announcer yelling through a megaphone, "Why restrain yourself from sexual desire? The female skin is beautiful." At this point, she shows the man her breasts.

After seeing the ghost's breasts, the misogynist tries to kill the ghost, but she is too fast for him. He ends the chase and proclaims, "All the aesthetic practice I've done could not put out the flame of my carnal desire". Then he stabs himself.

The ghost reveals herself as Lady Hosokawa before the dying misogynist. This is somehow significant, but I wasn't paying enough attention to pick up on any subtleties.

Chapter 'Hell' - Part 5: This part is set in a secret Iga Ninja village: A younger guy walks into the Ninja village with kids swarming all around him. One of the kids asks, "Did you bring a rabbit"? The dubbed English voice was that of an adult, so it was weird to hear a kid talk like that.

The guy smiles and pulls a rabbit out of his shirt for the kids. Everything is fine until the village is suddenly bombarded by flaming arrows. There's a big battle scene, but nothing worth saving video captures of. For a battle scene, it was pretty unremarkable.

Shito and his crew are still going around reincarnating dead and dying people, so of course they show up here. They approach the younger guy this time. When he asks why Shito chose him for reincarnation; Shito says he chose him, "out of sympathy" but doesn't offer any further explanation.

Eyepatch.

Suddenly, the guy with the eye patch reappears! Shito's crew charges Eyepatch on horseback, but he jumps straight up in a tree so they can't reach him.

Shito asks, "When did you turn into a monkey"? Shito's crew thinks this is hilarious and everybody is laughing their asses off. They ride off with some parting words, "We'll meet again in the future."

Eyepatch says to himself, "Something strange is about to happen."

I stopped keeping track of the Chapter 'Hell' divisions at this point. Just trying to watch the movie took all my energy.

Around this point is where the whole subplot began about Shito sowing discontent among the Shogun's people. They are living in a feudal system in which they pay taxes to the shogun in exchange for permission to farm the land he owns. So, Shito starts cursing the land by occult means. He is chanting over a fire while one of his crew is dropping snakes into the flame.

Shito: "Wheat will whither and die. Soil will rot. Ameeeeen."

Greatest swordsmith in the world.

Now the scene changes and we see Eyepatch visiting the greatest swordsmith in the world who is living in exile on a mountaintop with his step-daughter who plays the flute.

Eyepatch drops in and requests, "a sword that can cut evil demons."

The swordsmith repeats, "A sword that can cut evil demons". He becomes philosophical and comments, "Evil will always thwart evil" and Eyepatch's only hope is, "a sword that was fashioned by me - one with an evil soul."

The step-daughter objects, "Please! My father has used all his strength on his last sword"!
Eyepatch says he needs the sword, "to kill Musashi" (Musashi is the reincarnated great samurai who had nothing to do besides wait to die at age 62). Musashi is also this girl's real father! wtf?

When the girl objects that Musashi is already dead, Eyepatch tells her, "He is back as a ghost. I saw it with my own EYES!

Eyes!! Plural! He is the guy with the eyepatch! He only has one eye. The translator must have been just listening to the dialogue and not paying much attention to the movie's action, which I would totally understand.

Warding off Musashi.

Suddenly the house shakes violently.

Eyepatch:"Do you keep a sword in the house"?

Swordsmith:There is none".

Eyepatch:"Not even a short sword"?

Swordsmith:"There is none"!!

Musashi is approaching until his daughter starts playing the flute, which makes him emotional, and prompts him to leave.

Shito's gay kiss.

The greatest swordsmith in the world agrees to forge the sword. "To destroy that sort of evil spirit, I'm sure that only I can make such a sword" (because he is personally so evil).

This is followed by completely unnecessary footage of the forging process. Two guys pounding metal by fire light. It goes on forever.

The action goes back to Shito and his crew. Shito is talking to the younger guy, telling him he is "too young to be a fully matured spirit of the darkness."

Then he gives him a gay kiss and asks, "Do you understand"?

Lustful encounter.

The younger guy does not understand, because in the next scene, he is approaching a young girl who is playing the flute next to a river in the sunshine. He begins accosting her, and tells her, "I love you!"

She responds, "Alright! Just go away!"

He lets the girl run away; then he begins to cry.

Eyepatch appears and states, "I see there is still some sense left in you...more or less."

The younger guy is crying like a girl now and lamenting, "I feel tormented"! He asks Eyepatch to please kill him.

As Eyepatch is about to cut off the younger guy's head, the younger guy starts singing. This singing affects Eyepatch on some undisclosed level, prompting him to stop and declare, "You must go on living."

Back on the mountaintop, the sword is finally finished, then the master swordsmith dies. He last words were, "If you encounter God, God will be cut. If you encounter an evil spirit, the evil spirit will be cut. This is the greatest sword I ever made."

Eyepatch responds, "I am truly gratified."

All hell is breaking loose in town. The farmer's are rioting. They don't want to pay taxes on lousy farmland and they are rising up against the local magistrates.

Lady Hosokawa takes another form and is telling the head magistrate, "Oh look, my lord! A deer"! Under some magical influence, the magistrate sees deer instead of angry townspeople and he starts shooting them all with arrows! So, if the villagers didn't think highly of him before, they think a lot less of him now.

Crucifixion scene.

Next up is a mass crucifixion scene with angry farmer protesters. It is not clear whether the magistrate still thinks he is crucifying deer, or if he is now crucifying a different group of villagers.

Something possesses one of the female villagers to take her shirt off and go into a frenzy (I couldn't get a good video capture because she was moving around too wildly). Then the crosses begin to glow. The shit hits the fan and Shito convinces the villagers to burn down the shogun's castle.

Glowing crucifixes.

When they all run off, Eyepatch is cremating the dead on a bonfire until he is at last challenged by Musashi. Musashi wants a one-on-one dual on an island beach.

Eyepatch accepts the challenge, despite protests from Musashi's daughter. "It is, perhaps, the way of the sword; and that is the path I have chosen."

Musashi on the beach.

The next day, Eyepatch meets Musashi on the beach. The greatest swordsmith in the world's step-daughter is there as well, playing her flute; hoping to discombobulate Musashi again.

When he hears his daughter's flute-playing, Musashi declares, "I have no room in my heart for tender emotions. Listen to the flute as I smash your skull into thousands of pieces." He is brutal.

Emotional flute music.

This dialogue is followed by a great (and by "great", I mean "boring") sword battle on the beach with flute music in the background. Eyepatch wins. 

The rest of the film is mass chaos. Farmers are burning the shogun's castle. Mass carnage is everywhere. Lots of fire and killing. The estate's Lord is fighting for his life and is getting along fine. He is a great swordsman.

Lord of the estate.

Shito is egging everything on. He fights the estate's Lord and reminds him the whole point of all of this is to avenge the massacred Christians.

Eyepatch shows up to put an end to this nonsense once and for all. Shito tries to tempt him with immortality, but Eyepatch declines; stating, "I do not believe in anyone having eternal life. Above all, I cannot allow you to exist."

When Shito declares, "I intend to turn this entire country to ashes", Eyepatch slices his head right off.

Shito's talking, decapitated head.

Shito catches his own head (!) and it is still running it's mouth, laughing about how Shito will return again.

Then the camera fades out and it is finally over.

Conclusion - This movie was a little bit of everything (i.e. confusing, annoying, boring...). I bought it at my local 99 Cent Store because I loved the cover. The deranged samurai looked promising, but any promise that this movie held was lost even before Chapter 'Hell' - Part 2 got rolling. Even though it only cost 99 cents, I feel ripped off.

[ Reviewed late 2006. ]

Cat Thanksgiving, 2006

In 2006, I was renting a cheap room in Santa Ana, where the property was overrun by a colony of feral cats, neglected by the community and left to fend for themselves on scraps and garbage. It was heartbreaking—many of them were sick, constantly re-infecting each other with colds and worse. They were painfully thin, doomed to short lives on the streets. We managed to rescue one of them, Tiggi, but didn’t have the means to help the others.

That Thanksgiving, after cooking a feast for just the two of us, we had more leftovers than we could possibly eat. So, after setting aside a few meals, we decided to share the rest with the cats. What started on the back porch quickly turned into a street party of sorts, as the cats, one by one, began dragging off their own personal servings of turkey and stuffing.

Cat Thanksgiving, 2006, was a true feast for the starving strays outside. I remember a light drizzle falling, with some of the cats already huddled on our porch for shelter. But as soon as the Thanksgiving dinner hit the air, they emerged—cats darted out from behind trees and dumpsters like they’d been waiting for the signal. When I moved the food closer to the dumpsters, twice as many hidden felines appeared, slinking out from the shadows to join the feast. It was as if they’d been lying in wait for their own secret holiday banquet.

Everyone ate their fill that night—except for one white cat I’d named Skeletor. He missed out on the feast, though I hoped he was getting fed somewhere else. I’ve never seen a turkey carcass picked so clean, so fast. Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheap Video Reviews: The Doors: The Soft Parade, A Retrospective

Doors: The Soft Parade.

Boz sent me this VHS tape. It consists of live performance footage shot for PBS, interspersed with archival footage of the band hanging around backstage and some other miscellaneous live performance footage. It is perhaps better appreciated by die-hard Doors fans. It contained nothing substantial or very interesting. The film makers were likely just making a buck off of some footage they had.

Door with groupie.

The film kicks off with footage of the band sitting around backstage with groupies, then quickly goes downhill from there.

There's some performance footage from a PBS special, which is ok, but nothing special. Jim Morrison is wearing a thick beard and the spaced out organ player is smoking his cigarette down well past the filter.

After the concert, we're treated to an interview with the band in which they ramble all over the place, speaking just above a whisper to the Village Voice interviewer, who is apparently some kind of greasy hippie himself.

The Doors being interviewed by a greasy hippy.

In the interview, the band is taking themselves way too seriously which I expected; but what surprises me is how seriously the interviewer and everybody else seem to be taking them as well.

The interview discusses the Doors' live concerts as a "religious experience". They're seriously talking about a "communion" that occurs and how great it would be if that communion occurred in the larger outside society as well. WTF.

Jim Morrison talks about himself as a "rock shaman" and you can almost see that he even annoys his band mates when he starts in with that nonsense. The interviewer is eating it up though.

Then there is more footage of girls flirting with Jim Morrison followed by a backstage improvised composition, Ode to Friedrich Nietzsche, which Morrison composes spontaneously on a piano and he's almost manic. It's funny to see Jim Morrison bobbing around all giddy for a change.

Next, there's a long performance of The Unknown Soldier which is interspersed with real war photos as well as footage of the doors walking around on a beach. Just to be as pretentious as possible, Jim Morrison is hanging on a cross in this footage. This footage goes on for what seems like an hour or two.

Some of the best footage was shot in the recording studio. The organ player's head hovers just an inch or two above the organ keys.

Closing credits.

Then there is an older intellectual gentleman who is talking about religion with Jim Morrison. The gentleman is almost giddy when the singer tells him he will give him his address for future correspondence.

The video ends with the Doors performing "Hello, I Love You" while a lady dances and the credits roll.

I greatly prefer Doors songs to NKOTB songs, but I greatly prefer the NKOTB video to the Doors video. For that matter, I prefer almost all the videos I've reviewed to the Doors video (except for Samurai: Reincarnation. I prefer the Doors to that because, at least the Doors video takes up less than an hour of time to view).

[ Reviewed late 2006. ]

Panic, Pride, & Panda Express

Once, at Panda Express, I was halfway through my broccoli beef as a teenage couple at the next table finished their meal. The guy left his wallet sitting on his tray, and when he dumped the tray into the trash, the wallet went right along with it.

My friend, facing their table, leaned toward me and said quietly, “He just threw his wallet in the trash.”

The couple left the building, but a few minutes later they came rushing back, in a panic. The boy looked under and around the table where they’d been seated, then glanced at the trash can. He shook his head as if denying it was even possible. Not worth checking, he decided. Pride won out. He was not the wallet-in-the-trash type.

Looking back, maybe I should’ve told them. But in the moment, I let fate handle it.

Years later, in 2023, I asked a.i. to recreate the moment and the result left something to be desired. The boy was not actually wearing a panda mask that day.

A.I. recreation.

Patriot Haircut

If anybody remembers the World of Warriors gun shop photo I posted last summer, you might recall the next door barbershop with a giant American flag painted on their storefront. Well, later that summer, the barbershop's owner also gave a patriotic makeovers to the parking berms directly in front of his shop as well. I kind of like that he goes all out like that. It's like some people with their Christmas decorations.

Patriot Haircuts.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, May 9, 2006]

Just the Good Stuff

A list of last lines from bawdy limericks.

So the town never sleeps after dark.

Fuck after fuck after fuck?

For after he fucked her, he ate her

Like Father John's thumb after mass

And the other we'll try after marriage.

One fore, and one aft, and one oral

And the general effect was quite lovely.

He went out in the yard and ate dung

For the thing she called "Utterly-utta!"

In the archiepiscopal pants.

His nose out of private affairs.

Again, and again, and again

Won't you do it again, Sir? Bis! Bis!

Against pinches, and pins in the ass."

And fell down again from the smell.

And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria.

And now she is just a plain whore again.

For I certainly don't want to sin again.

And I do it again and again.

And ate up the whole afterbirth.

The scent-ah, that was a failure

Ah, you're changing the t to a p!

Is the squid that I keep in the sink

Or a goat, or whatever is handy

With the aid of his constable's truncheon

He rogered the national School.

And other odd mammals

Now ain't this a hell of a fug!

Ain't that foresight for ya?

Said she, You mean that ain't your finger?

But that ain't my prick-it's a spike.

If you've slept with that sonofabitch again

I'm surprised that by now they ain't mamas.

Ain't it grand and realistic!

But I don't feel as good as I did

This ain't a cunt-it's a corridor

With his backside awave in the air

It shot off in the air like a rocket

And was washed down the aisle on the froth

The arse on our parson needs fixin

But alas he was only a eunuch

Felt dear Alfred's delicious arse wriggle

And they promptly refunded his stub

And all he could shit was spaghetti

For all he had left was the skin

And bought her a chastity girdle

And now all her sisters are aunts

For which all her lovers may thank her

All got clap in their hindermost region

And framed, within miniature cunts

The waiters were all hanging low

And the doctors all fainted away

And the worst is, they all do it well

And dived in all covered with drool

To all but the spermatozoa

That he soon had her cunt all asmokin

(From a scholarly lexiconography paper discovered by Brother Todd).

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Apr. 29, 2006]

J Spot

Guess what this is -

My favorite parking spot in Von's supermarket parking lot has been memorialized.

I drive over to Von's every morning at about 5:45 a.m. and park there all day while I ride the bus to work. I'm gone for roughly twelve hours (8.5 working and 3.5 commuting both ways), then I drive back home.

Apparently they re-surfaced the parking lot on Tuesday and, since I wasn't around to move my car, they had to pave around it, leaving a huge unpaved spot, memorializing my favorite parking space.

I think it's cool.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Apr. 27, 2006]

Review of CONTENT by Ross

My cousin Jonnie has always been one step ahead of the rest of us.  It becomes even more obvious after reading his new book that he's been on the cutting edge of human existence since early childhood.....heck probably straight from the womb.

As a kid he always wore short pants under his jeans in case he got hot or had an opportunity to go for an impromptu swim.  After getting hit by a train as an adult, he skipped his last doctor's appointment and pulled the staples out of his head with a pair of pliers.

Any minor discrepancies in Mr. Gilliom's story telling, such as the reference to Coleman fuel as kerosene, are easily overlooked and you'll end up telling yourself the same thing one of the Delta Tau Chai fraternity brother's said in Animal House after John Belushi's character "Bluto" referred to the German's bombing Pearl Harbor.  Shut up he's on roll..... 

Furthermore

By Donald Kilbuck

The Introduction for the book! Real or reel! You may feel this introduction for all the feelings that people have, has, fast, faster, motions may feel motionless, butt the earth may swallow you up if you're not all there. The stink of whatever, if you wear it. Although i got the tide, tightrobe, out into this Island and feel the changing weather, and the emotions may catch all your feelings, vomit isn't all what it seems. Getting a speeding ticket also.

Like Mayflies on a Summer Night: Ephemera and the Hardcore

Jonnie, an introduction

by AmyJo

Ephemera:

1: something transitory; lasting a day

2: an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form, i.e. a mayfly

3: A short-lived thing.

4: Printed matter of passing interest.

Hardcore:

1. a form of music with hard fast delivery.

simple and effective sounds, mainly focussed [sic] on a message. message is ussually [sic] unity, anarky, [sic] strength or public power.

2. HARDCORE is the limit, it is the core of cool things! It is the mother of things!

(1 &2. source, the Urban Dictionary)

hard-core also hard·core (härdkôr, -kr)
adj.

1. Intensely loyal; die-hard: a hard-core secessionist; a hard-core golfer.
2. Stubbornly resistant to improvement or change: hard-core poverty.
3. Extremely graphic or explicit: hard-core pornography.

In the pages that follow we see what happens when an archivist with absurdist tendencies catalogues the minutiae of daily existence.  But Jonnie is no nebbish, collecting facts and sticking them like boogers to the page.  Here are no dull recitations of the collector, no dry scraps preserved in a vacuum.  Rather we find a compendium at once familiar and revelatory—incidents, memories, processes, encounters—that reveal the texture both of everyday life, and the mind of their chronicler—a texture that is not unlike the orange dust that clings to your fingers after eating a bag of Cheetos—sticky, flavorful, impossible to get out from under your nails.

In Jonnie 7-11’s book you will discover the intersection of the ephemeral and the hardcore.  One might assume that these two qualities are contradictory, but in Jonnie’s work the paradox reveals a space where life itself is illuminated with uncommon intensity. 

There is no doubt that Jonnie is hardcore.  From early childhood to his fully-fledged manhood, Jonnie has exhibited the balls-to-the-wall willingness to explore the world as it is and to interact with what’s right there in front of him. Whether he is breaking rocks for eight hours a day , practicing mole removal with ordinary nail clippers, conducting experiments by micturating into his own visage, chasing Amish buggies or freight trains, encountering day laborers, his Liebling, archivists, bloggers, landlords, esquimaux, drunks, golfers or schizophrenics, Jonnie does not shrink from experience.  No subject, no matter how mundane, no person, no matter how crazy, escapes his notice.  As Jonnie himself professes, he has an affection for stupidity.

At first glance this book might seem like a compendium of ephemera—disconnected and utterly without point.  Jonnie himself calls his blog (from which these entries were drawn) “a place to store my stuff”.  However, taken all together, what emerges in these pages is, for me at least, truly rare.   Behind the fork fangs and the hulk hands and the pirate salute is a person who strikes me as kind and intelligent and imaginative and wise. 

Read between the lines of his anecdotes and the ephemera he presents will remind you that life—fleeting, ordinary life—can be exciting and fun.  This is a powerful thing to do.  On the surface his anecdotes and craft projects are hilarious—but after continued exposure they become—absurdly-- uplifting.

Jonnie first came to me by reputation, as the librettist and chief tenor of his dadaist masterpiece, The Toilet Opera.  His aria “hear my flush, fear my flush”, even at secondhand, is unforgettable.  On the basis of that single exuberant couplet, I concluded that Jonnie Gilliom was a man whose hand I’d be proud to shake (after we both washed, of course). 

Nearly ten years later, Boz, Jonnie and I gathered online and audio-blogged  excerpts from “Bat Out of Hell”.  I was grieving the suicide of a dear friend and laid up in bed with a broken ankle.  My family were all far away.  So were my friends.  But online, the three of us had what I will always consider a wake.  Jonnie didn’t speak any traditional words of sympathy. Sentimentality isn’t his style. But he sang Meatloaf  into a pillow while wearing a Frankenstein mask, baying into the phone in his signature tuneless Frank Zappa voice and , four hundred miles away, I laughed until I cried.   

I don’t know if he even remembers that night, and it doesn’t matter.  At a time when I couldn’t be consoled, that evening—three dorks screaming songs into the phone and zonking about Meatloaf—helped me get through a really bad night.  To me, that is Jonnie.  I don’t know how he does it, but he makes me feel that life is good. 

I have been following Jonnie’s work on the web for almost three years now, and over the course of that time his writing has captivated me, instructed me, comforted me, and won my respect.

So settle in.  Let Jonnie teach you the deeper meaning of what it is to be hardcore. Embrace the ephemeral with courage and humor.  Let this book remind you that, somewhere out there in the flickering light of the Del Taco sign, under the swaying palm trees of the OC, a man with a vision cares enough to write about those ephemeral moments that are born and pass away like mayflies on a summer night—brief, beautiful, pointless, and profound.

Book of Lists #2

13 things I've learned from reading The Book of Lists #2 (1980):

1. Clark Gable would have been 80 years old if he had lived until 1981 (p. 1).

2. Breakfast cereals, once considered "junk foods" in 1980, are now often seen as healthy (p. 381).

3. Bob Dylan's forgettable Blonde on Blonde was ranked the second greatest album of all time by rock critics in 1978 (p. 164).

4. There is a street named "Nameless Street" in Manning, Iowa (p. 44).

5. An unpainted wooden stake lasts 1-4 years before disintegrating, while a painted one lasts 13 years (p. 245)!

6. "Gorgias of Epirus was born during the funeral of his mother. The pallbearers were shocked to hear unexpected crying and opened the coffin to discover Gorgias, who had slipped out of the womb and was very much alive" (p. 259).

7. In 1890, Leventon & Co. sold 180,000 Egyptian mummified cats from a burial ground near Beni Hasaan for 3.15 shillings per ton (p. 276).

8. A Picture is worth a thousand words - "The American Society of Magazine Photographers reported the base rate for a full-page photo was $75 for black-and-white, $150 for color. However, an illustration was much more expensive. Playboy paid $800 for a full-page color illustration, while its article rate was about 40 cents per word. On this scale, a picture would be worth 2,000 words (p. 142).

9. Nome, Alaska, was accidentally named after the word "name" miscopied from a British map in 1850 (p. 135).

10. For a 1977 Laugh-In skit, censors insisted the phrase "Don't forget to take your pill" be replaced with "Be careful" because the network objected to the implication that women plan in advance to have sex  (p. 205).

11. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was originally going to be titled Catch-18 (p. 229).

12. The Postman Always Rings Twice was originally going to be titled Bar-B-Q 

(p. 228).

13. "The giant squid is the most highly developed of the invertebrates. Its eyes are almost exact replicas of human eyes. Often confused with the octopus, which attacks humans only when threatened, the giant squid is a carnivorous predator. One notable incident occurred on March 25, 1941, when the British ship Britannia sank in the Atlantic Ocean. As a dozen survivors clung to their lifeboat, a giant squid reached its arm around the body of a man and pulled him below"(p. 109).

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Apr. 14, 2006]

Cheap Video Reviews: Hot Rod Girl

Hot Rod Girl/T-Bird Gang.

Hot Rod Girl is one half of a dollar double feature DVD that Boz sent to me as a gift. I tried to watch both films on the DVD and the other film, T-Bird Gang, was underwhelming I actually fell asleep during that one. But Hot Rod Girl is a different story.

Hot Rod Girl, Miss Lisa Vernon.

It starts with a bang at the drag strip where Miss Lisa Vernon is hauling toward the finish line in her T-Bird before the opening credits have even finished rolling. The announcer confirms she has won yet another race.

Far from your typical crazed street-racer, Lisa Vernon is actually an All-American girl, as wholesome as they come. And it turns out, all the good kids in this town get their kicks at the drag strip, rather than terrorizing the public streets. But guess what? The public is clueless and is pressuring the city council to shut the strip down!

The hot rod gang.

After the race, we meet Lisa's crew, Steve, Flat-Top, and her responsible boyfriend, Jeff.

Oh! And in the background for just a few seconds – blink and you’ll miss it - a car rolls by with 666 painted on the door! Spooky!

666.

They're all planning to hit up Yo-Yo’s, the local teen hangout; but Steve, the youngest hot rodder, is stuck at home because his hot rod hating Aunt Sarah has him on lockdown. Aunt Sarah is basically a human speed bump in Steve’s life.

Jeff: "How about you, Steve?"

Steve: "Gee, I'd love to....but every time I come to the strip, Aunt Sarah puts a stopwatch on me...I'll be glad when I'm old enough to move in with you. She's strictly horse & buggy. She doesn't dig hot rods at all!"

The older gearheads chuckle affectionately. Then Jeff agrees to ride with Steve to diagnose a troublesome engine noise.

Anti-drag racing poster.

Now we meet the hot-rodders' friend, Ben. Ben is a little older, wears a suit and a hat, and is in a position of some authority with the local police force. Ben is at his city councilman's office discussing the drag-strip. Teen hot-rodding is public enemy #1 in this town and the city councilman’s whole office is basically a shrine to automobile accidents, including a huge poster of a horrible car accident on his office wall!

Councilman: "I've seen too much!"

Ben: "If you come out to the strip & get to know the kids..."

Councilman: "No thanks! That's your headache!!"

Long story short, Ben's trying to keep the strip alive, arguing that it keeps the kids off the streets. After some persuasion, the councilman reluctantly agrees.

Next, we’re cruising around town with Jeff & Steve. Jeff doesn't hear the engine sound Steve was complaining about.

Steve: "If I could really open it up..."

Then Jeff gets VERY serious and interjects, "At the racetrack!" Jeff is the voice of reason.

Steve starts in about his Aunt Sarah again - "Living with her is like driving with your breaks on!...Slow down!...Stop!...That's the story of my life!"

"Who's this squirrel?"

Jeff advises Steve to just cool it until he's old enough to move out,.

And then, out of nowhere, a blond Eddie Haskell lookalike pulls up next to them, revving his engine like a madman. Steve calls him a squirrel, and this dude lives up to it, weaving, laughing, and generally being a jackass. The stranger continues to gawk at them, revving his engine and laughing. It's a pretty funny scene.

Jeff advises, "Ignore him, Steve...Play it smart! He's looking for trouble - disappoint him."

Road rage.

Jeff stays cool, but Steve begins to lose his.

But then, things take a wild turn. The squirrel driver backs into their car – twice – at a stop sign, all while cackling like a maniac! Who even does that?

That's it, Steve's had enough, and it's road rage o'clock. They crash, and Steve doesn't make it. Jeff's in pieces, the councilman calls the car a 'hopped-up death trap,' and the whole town goes apeshit.

Sadness.

Yo-Yo's.

The scene shifts to Yo-Yo's some time later. Everyone is there, but guess what? Jeff is missing in action. The opening segment of this scene is pretty hilarious and cannot be captured in still screen captures. It's showing close-ups of the kids' ecstatic faces as they blissfully listen to jazz records. It's the funniest part of the movie, in my opinion.

Lisa is the only one still talking about the drag strip since Jim has withdrawn into work.

Lisa: "You know, if they close the strip, the next step will be to outlaw all hot rods."

Flat-Top: "Aww...so let 'em, if it'll make the squares happy."

"LP" and her man.

Next, we meet LP, which is short for Long-Playing Record. Because she talks a lot.

LP: "They wouldn't dare! My whole wardrobe is designed around the drag strip!"

Nobody takes LP seriously. Whenever she talks too much, they're all like, "Oh, LP! Flip the record!"

They discuss Jeff's absence. LP, who is apparently promiscuous, suggests she could probably get him back.

LP: "People respond to me in a different way than they do to normal girls."

The discussion turns to illegal non-strip racing and Lisa walks out on everybody and chaos ensues.

Flat-Top, feeling a little squirrely without Jeff's sober presence, hands Yo-Yo a Canadian dime! Yo-Yo's like, 'Hey, this is a Canadian dime!' And Flat-Top's comeback? 'So? Take a trip!' Classic Flat-Top.

Now, we're in Jeff's garage, and he's burning the midnight oil as a mechanic.

Jeff's boss: "You're looking tired, Jeff."

Jeff: "I like being tired."

Jeff's boss: "Yeah, I know."

"Do you think it's easy for me to come here?"

But hold up, this melodrama's interrupted when Lisa makes an entrance, determined to crack Jeff's shell.

She hits him with, 'Don't you think I have my pride? Do you think it's easy for me to come here?'

Jeff finally explains he feels responsible for Steve's death because he's the one who souped up Steve's car for him.

Jeff: "Every time I open the hood of a car and see the engine, I think of the engine I built for him!"

Lisa: "Trying to kill yourself with work isn't going to bring him back!"

Lisa warns Jeff that Flat-Top and the other kids "are starting to act up" without his guidance, but Jeff just can't deal with that right now.

Talbot.

Now, meet Talbot, the new guy in town with an ear-piercing engine. He's all over Lisa, but she's not having any of it.

Talbot: "They told me this was a friendly town."

Lisa: "I'm the exception."

As Talbot leaves Yo-Yo's, he declares, 'When I get my coffee pot perkin’, maybe I can teach some of you cats a lesson!' Confidence level: through the roof.

Lisa, Judy, & Flat-Top talking shit.

Talbot fancies himself a great driver, but he doesn't take good care of his car at all. 

When he talks to Jeff at the garage, he affirms, "I'm here for service, not a sermon! It's my heap and I'll do with it as I please!"

Back at Yo-Yo's, Talbot pulls the ultimate party foul – he unplugs the jukebox, killing everyone's tunes and losing their credits, just so he can talk. What a dick.

But wait, Jeff makes his grand entrance! He tells Yo-Yo, 'No trouble, just music.' Ah, sweet reunion.

Feeling pressured, Talbot just flat-out challenges the whole gang to a game of chicken.

Yo-Yo, the owner of Yo-Yo’s, looks to the sky and asks the gods, "Why do I have to run a hangout for lunatics?"

"I don't want trouble...just music."

The "Chicken" scene is excellent! All the onlookers are tense as hell as Talbot and Flat-Top take their positions. 

Everyone's on edge as Talbot and Flat-Top line up. They come barreling down the road, head-on, and the first to chicken out loses.

 Spoiler alert: Flat-Top blinks, and Talbot declares them all 'chickens.'  

Everyone is a chicken except for Talbot.

Talbot at the wheel.

Flat-Top at the other wheel.

Later, Flat-Top's girl makes him swear off chicken for life. 

LP chimes in with her dramatic flair, 'Exciting! Too exciting for me!! Imagine! Too exciting for ME??!!!'

Then Ben swoops in to chew them all out: 'One more hot rod accident, and you ALL lose your licenses!' The stakes are high.

Make-Up Scene - 

Lisa's & Jeff's make-up scene.

Now, get ready for some romance. Jeff and Lisa are in his apartment, things are heating up, and Jeff, the poster child of moral responsibility, tells Lisa, “I think you'd better go.”

Lisa's like, 'Can I at least get my coffee first?' Jeff's reply? 'I'll buy you a cup tomorrow.' They both smile, suggesting that if Lisa stays one more minute, Jeff is going to lose control and try to have sex with her, so she’s got to go. Jeff & Lisa embody the ideal of American 1950s virtue.

Now that Jeff is no longer working himself to death, he is able to get all the kids back out to the drag strip where they belong.

Talbot's ultimatum.

Ben finds Talbot sitting around in Yo-Yo's by himself trying to figure out where Lisa is. Upon learning she is at the racetrack with everyone else, Talbot flies off like a bat out of hell.

Ben follows him and arrests him for speeding and gives him an ultimatum: 'Come to the drag strip and see how real hot rodders roll, or face reckless driving charges.'

But when they get to the track, Jeff's not having it. He says Talbot's car is a deathtrap, and things go south real quick. Talbot flips out, threatens Jeff, and vows to get revenge.

Dangerous recklessness.

He ends with a direct threat to Jeff - "I'll get you yet!!"

Later, as Jeff and Lisa are driving around, Talbot approaches from the rear and keeps veering in front of them, trying to piss them off. During this nonsense, a bicycle rider is hit and killed. Jeff and Lisa aren't sure who hit him, but Talbot is sure it was Jeff. The City Councilman is so pissed, he fires Ben and closes the drag strip. Soon all hot rods will be outlawed.

Approaching Talbot.

Not one to wallow in self pity (unlike Jeff after Steve's death), Ben is hard at work collecting a paint sample from Talbot's car. He then approaches Talbot, who is sitting alone drinking a soda at Yo-Yo's.

Ben informs Talbot his inspection of the accident site reveals Jeff's skid marks ending 50 feet before the kid while Talbot's go right through the impact point. He also thinks Talbot's car finish matches marks found on the boy.

Talbot responds by standing up and smashing Ben over the head with a bottle!

Brawl at Yo-Yo's.

Then, Jeff runs in and beats the shit out of Talbot.

Everyone agrees Talbot's actions suggest he is guilty. Ben says, "I have to go see a man about a badge", implying he will get his job back since he was able to determine the accident was Talbot's fault.

Nursing Jim's wounds.

Then Jeff & Lisa make-out and everything is fine.


Commentary - The title is a little misleading, as the "hot rod girl" is really just a supporting character. The movie isn’t terrible, but could use a little more action. The "chicken" scene is badass as is the scene leading up to Steve's death, but highlights like that are few and far between. As part of a 2-for-$1 DVD though, especially one that was given to me for free, I can't complain at all about Hot Rod Girl.

[ Reviewed March, 2006. ]