Cheap Video Reviews: Wild Guitar

Wild Guitar.

Wild Guitar opens with a teenager riding a motorcycle around Los Angeles, California. He's wearing a leather jacket and the viewer can't help but to assume this teenager is probably looking for trouble. As the biker rolls into town, the viewer is treated to a series of black & white Los Angeles street scenes from what must be the early 1960s. These historic scenes are interspersed with footage of the motorcycling teenager; who will, unfortunately, probably turn out to be our story's hero.

The motorcycling Teenager.

The teenager decides to check out the scene. He parks his motorcycle somewhere and starts walking around town. Apparently he is not local to Los Angeles because he's carrying a suitcase and engaging in a great deal of rubbernecking.

Hollywood Blvd.

At one point, while crossing the street, his suitcase falls open and his laundry falls into the street; so he has to repack in front of a shitload of impatient drivers as they unmercifully honk their car horns at him. He is not a city guy.

The teenager stops to check out the Capitol Records building and longingly adores it for awhile, then he strolls on down Hollywood Blvd., stopping for a moment to admire a neon Dean Martin sign outside "Dino's Lounge". At this point, he seems inspired and runs a comb through his hair. Despite his difficult adjustment period, this trip is turning out to be worth it after all.

Dino.

Now it's time for refreshment. Our hero drops by the Coffee Cup Cafe which is staffed by a no-nonsense straight-talking waitress named Marge. Off to the side, there are three lowlifes playing cards in plaid jackets. When they see our hero, the lowlifes are less than impressed.

Lowlife 1: "What's that"??
Lowlife 2: "Me thinks it's a Hick"!

Lowlife 3: "Yeah! A HICK"!

Three lowlifes.

These clowns are obviously douchebags who have nothing better to do all day than run their mouths.

Just to show they mean business though, one of the lowlifes mutters, "Hit me" during the card game.

Another replies, "OK", and punches him right in the face. You wouldn't want to mess around with these guys.

Seated at the counter is a perky blond girl. Our hero sits down right next to her.

Perky blonde girl.

The blond girl is talking to Marge the waitress about how she just got a role on the "Hell Kitten" TV program. In front of her is an untouched sandwich. She comments, "I just wanted to feed the butterflies. I'm not hungry". At first I thought this scene was supposed to show how nice the girl was. Now, during my reflections as I type this, I realize butterflies don't eat sandwiches and the butterflies she was talking about were in her stomach. She was talking about being nervous before her appearance on "Hell Kitten". This movie had no butterflies in it at all.

"Who needs freeways anyway?"

Back to our hero: He is discouraged by the menu prices and orders a donut and coffee. Marge tells him he forgot the tax: "You forgot the tax! A penny for the governor!"

When she sees he's broke, Marge covers it from her tip jar and makes a shitty comment: "Who needs freeways anyway"?

This may be the reason she gives our hero a girl's cup to drink from.

Well, of course the blond girl gives our hero her sandwich since she wasn't hungry anyway. As she gets up, she trips over our hero's guitar; which he has left laying on its side, protruding out into the walkway.

The blond girl doesn't get mad at all. She just asks our hero if he's a musician. He affirms he is.

Blond Girl: "I read somewhere about the thousands of kids we come to Hollywood each year, but I forget the exact number".

It is obvious to everybody that our hero is from out of town.

Our hero feels some pressure to make himself stand out in the crowd, so he produces a letter from the manager of a local radio station, "in Spearfish", who used to put him on the air.

Well, nobody is impressed. The viewer is treated to a series of closeups of everybody in the diner (even young children, who apparently know all about geography) looking puzzled and inquiring, "Spearfish"?

We learn that Spearfish is in South Dakota, much to the amusement of the L.A. locals.

The blond girl comments, "I'm still tryin' to get my foot in the door and I was born here.

This doesn't faze our hero and the blond girl turns out to be sympathetic since he's such a nice guy, especially when compared to the card-playing lowlifes. She invites him to join her during her appearance on the "Hell Kitten" television program.

"I'll be back for this later."

Our hero decides to bring his guitar and the letter from Spearfish. He also leaves his suitcase behind the diner counter with the Marge the waitress (!).

As the couple is leaving, we finally learn their names. The blond girl is named "Vicki Will" and our hero's name is "Bud Eagle". "Spelled just like the bird", he helpfully adds.

Hell Kitten.

The next scene opens with Vicki Will dancing on the Hell Kitten television program. It's pretty gratuitous. The dance goes on for almost an entire song, which is an upbeat beach music instrumental.

Backstage, another band is prepared to play, but the sax player isn't feeling well. The context of the scene suggests that he actually threw up into the bell of his own saxaphone!

Big shots are watching.

All the Big Shots of Los Angeles happen to be watching this show, and the host goes into a panic backstage. He has to fill the dead air with something entertaining!

Of course, Bud steps up. He walks right out on stage, forgetting his guitar due to nervousness. After retrieving his guitar from Vicki, he returns to the stage only to fall on his face after tripping over a power cord.

Everybody in the audience thinks this is hilarious. They carry on like it's the funniest thing they've ever seen in their lives. This kid is obviously from a small town.

Bud's performance.

Well, Bud isn't fazed at all. He's remarkably good-natured. The sick saxophone player's band is still standing around on stage and Bud walks right up to the show's host, who announces, "Well, I see you brought your own band. Let's fly"! And fly they do, performing sort of a half-assed rockabilly tune:

You're so sweet and you're so fine
You put an arrow right in my mind.

Bud's powerful stage presence wins the audience over completely. The crowd rushes the stage! The The Big Shot's phones are ringing off their cradles! The Big Shot announces, "There's our next hit"!

Back at the studio, Vicki is completely impressed. "Bud, you were wonderful! You've really got a sound"!

Washed-up Don Proctor.

The head big shot who was watching the show just happens to be Mr. Mike McCauley, "the biggest agent in Hollywood" and he wants to talk to Bud! It's also suggested that Mr. McCauley cooks the books. The viewer is treated to a scene in which an angry drunk named Don Proctor tries to get Mr. McCauley to show him the accounting books.

Apparently, Don proctor is a celebrity in his own right, because Bud is thrilled as hell when he sees him: "That's Don Proctor"! McCauley just gives Proctor the brush off though.

Bud's Hollywood pad.

McCauley insists that Bud call him "Mike" instead of "Mr. McCauley". He also informs Bud, "I don't want to handle anyone who thinks they know more about this business than me." Bud is agreeable to this arrangement, so McCauley agrees to manage his career. He even hooks Bud up with an apartment with a swimming pool that very night.

Bud: "I'll try to pay you back."

Mike: "Oh, you will!"

In addition to an apartment, Mike McCauley provides Bud with the services of a hardened thug named,"Steak." At first, I thought it was, "Snake," but it is, "Steak." Steak is a bad guy. He says Steak can get Bud anything he wants. Steak is commonly depicted next to a bottle of liquor in this movie.

"Steak."

Mike: "Now look, kid! Let's get something straight right now! When I said I do the thinking, that's what I meant!!"

Mike is controlling. When Bud announces his intentions to drop by the Coffee Cup Cafe so he can retrieve his suitcase and talk to Vicki, Mike McCauley suddenly goes apeshit.

McCauley really makes Bud feel stupid for wanting to retrieve his suitcase. He even decides he doesn't want to manage him any more. Bud ultimately apologizes and agrees to only do what McCauley tells him to. McCauley sends Steak to pick up Bud's suitcase and tells Steak to, "lose that guitar. It's probably got termites."

In this scene, we also learn that Bud's main reason for going into the music business is so he can make enough money to keep his brother Ted in college.

Waiting around for Bud.

Back at the Coffee Cup Cafe, Vicki and Marge are wondering where the hell Bud's at.

Steak darkens their doorway and gives Vicki a dollar bill to cover the sandwich she provided for Bud earlier.

Steak: "The kid doesn't want any loose ends."

After Steak leaves, Vicki & the waitress figure that Bud probably was an asshole after all.

Now that all the characters have been introduced, the story can really get rolling.

There's a short scene between Bud & Steak which takes place the next morning:

Steak: "I ordered you a steak".
Bud: [thrilled] "A steak for breakfast"?
Steak: "What else is there"?

Steak is trying to impress Bud with what a high roller he is, but that's the least of his deceptions. He also tells Bud that Vicki wasn't waiting for him at the Coffee Cup Cafe. Steak suggests Vicki was probably jealous that Mike McCauley signed Bud instead of her.

Mike McCauley goes over the published reviews of Bud's performance on the "Hell Kitten" show:

McCauley: "Four record companies are waving contracts."
Bud: "Four record companies"?
McCauley: "I put that in there. You can't believe anything you read."

McCauley presents Bud with a brand new electric guitar and this moment is one of the highlights of Bud's young life. McCauley also provides a band, some new suits, and a stack of songs. Bud has some of his own songs too and, despite the band's initial skepticism, they're better than anything McCauley could provide.

The viewer is treated to a series of close-up shots of everybody having the time of their lives.

"I'm getting taller every day."

Bud sings, "I'm getting to be a big boy now. I'm getting taller every day." Everybody loves this.

The camera close-ups start to swirl and they ultimately fade into a shot of a record swirling on the player. As the camera pans out, we see Steak is listening to it on a small record player.

He and Mike McCauley are up to no good. They're even sending fake letters from Bud's brother Ted and keeping the money that Bud is supposed to be sending home.

Good times.

While Mike McCauley is wheeling and dealing over the phone, Steak is standing by a light fixture. He keeps fooling around with the lamps, suggesting that he can't control his impulses as well as a regular civilized person can.

Steak screwing around with the lamp.

Over at the Coffee Cup Cafe, Bud's latest single is playing on the jukebox and the card-playing lowlifes are dancing around and generally enjoying themselves in their plaid jackets.

Vicki at the record store.

Vicki and Marge are still talking about Bud. Vicki comments, "Marge, he's the most"!

Vicki decides to go out and buy Bud's record. There's a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Bud next to his record display and Vicki is just crazy about it.

Back at the office, Mike McCauley has gathered the presidents of all Bud's local high school fan clubs. They're talking business and McCauley offers them a percentage if they can increase product sales. 

"I think he's cute."

McCauley is running kind of an informal focus group, asking their opinion about Bud and a girl replies, "I think he's cute."

McCauley: "Sure he is! He's got appeal"! Mccauley is benefitting immensely from this focus group.

McCauley asks what they could do to increase Bud's popularity nationwide.

"He's got appeal."

Girl in focus group: "What about tearing off his clothes"?

Guy in focus group: "That's for squares."

Girl in focus group: "I think it's effective."

They discuss what kind of fad they should start and agree on feathers since bud's last name is Eagle. McCauley is cheap though and says they don't have to use actual eagle feathers. They could use chicken feathers instead

Bud's big entrance.

Next, Bud makes his big entrance. He's wearing a brand new pair of white slacks.

McCauley is getting all worked up, "Payola! Buzzola! Just call it ola"!

Bud doesn't go for this business talk and he's also suspicious that the letters from his brother Ted don't sound like Ted at all.

Bud wants out. he starts packing his suitcase.

Ever the quick thinker, McCauley gets involved: Steak! Bring him a Coke!"

McCauley starts telling Bud all about how the music business works.

Show business success.

Bud: "You can't just force people to like me."

McCauley: "Life is just a big game of follow the leader."

Bud comments that they couldn't manipulate his brother Ted. Brother Ted is no sheep. He's a guy everybody looks up to.

McCauley objects that Bud cannot leave because he hasn't covered McCauley's expenses yet and estimates they will be even in six months. Bud agrees to stick it out.

"He's singing about me!"

Bud: "We're gonna hit this town like mad"!

The next scene suggests the passing of time and a big increase in revenue.

While watching Bud perform on a television program, Vicki Will realizes Bud's latest song is about her!

Bud & Vicki: Together again!

Since she lives in Hollywood, she just gets up and runs to the studio on foot. When she finds Bud, she gives him a huge kiss.

Steak is spying on them from behind a bunch of hanging beads and he's appalled at their reunion.

They compare notes and realize that Steak was lying about her not waiting for Bud to return to the cafe on the first night they met

Steak is appalled.

 Then they decide to go skating. It turns out, Vicki's father owns a skating rink.

Bud assures Vicki he's a very good skater, but this turns out he was exaggerating.

Bud can scarcely stay on his feet when wearing ice skates. He tells Vicki he thought she meant it was a roller skating rink, because he's a hell of a roller skater.

Vicki on ice.

Vicki takes this moment to show off a little bit. She is practically an olympic level ice skater. I couldn't really get a good photo, because she moves so fast and is so white. This scene seemed gratuitous.

After her ice skating show, Vicki winks at Bud. Bud staggers around, then they start making out.

Back at the office, McCauley and Steak are discussing Bud's upcoming national tour and his reunion with Vicki.

McCauley: "If he wants a girl, get one for him."

Steak: "How about Daisy?"

Daisy must be some piece of work for a guy like Steak to recommend her so highly. The viewer can hardly wait.

While Bud is practicing the guitar in his apartment with the lights off, washed-up Don Proctor wanders in, making a comment about McCauley being too cheap to buy light bulbs. He goes ahead and takes a seat at Bud's bar.

Don Proctor: Telling it like it is.

Proctor: [pours drink] "Join me?"
Bud: "No, thanks."
Proctor: "Not yet, huh? You will."

Proctor is an alright guy. He starts telling Bud all about Mccauley's shady ways and the shady nature of the music business itself. He hates being one of McCauley's "trained seals."

Bud knows all about Proctor's musical career, he even has some of his records at home. He asks Proctor a little bit about his personal life.

Proctor: "It's not a long story, but a very tiresome one.
Not long ago, the fashion was for dark wavy-haired singers like me. Now it's kids. you don't even have to hear the words."

Proctor tells bud about McCauley's "golden leash" in which McCauley gives his performers everything they need, but no cash, so they can't leave.

Proctor: "Every cent you bring in goes out in expenses."
Bud: "How do I know you aren't just saying that because..."
Proctor: "Because I'm a drunk? A has been?? You don't, kid."

Steak & Daisy.

Luckily, this awkward moment doesn't last long because Steak shows up with Daisy!

Steak: "Kid, this is Daisy. She's gonna teach you how to swing."

Daisy is extremely direct. She is practically giving Bud a lap dance and she can really shake it! She has jewels on her nylons!

Don Proctor R.I.P.

Off on the sidelines, Steak and Don Proctor are getting into an altercation. Steak actually pulls a handgun on Proctor, but doesn't have a chance to use if before Proctor dies from falling down the stairs. This arrangement suits Steak just fine.

Things quickly go from bad to worse as Vicki barges into the apartment and finds Bud on the couch with Daisy, who is practically blowing him.

"Vicki!"

Well, shit. The party's over and everyone scatters. Vicki leaves in tears. Bud is wandering around outside. Steak slaps Daisy in the face for letting Bud get away.

What else could go wrong? The three lowlifes with plaid jackets from the cafe are in the bushes outside Bud's house and they decide to kidnap Bud. They plan to hold him in exchange for a lousy $5,000. The thugs are pretty inept. One of them is holding a long range rifle against Bud's chest. They don't have cars either, so they're all walking through Los Angeles holding a rifle to a back of a famous rock star.

"Let's go all the way!"

Well, that plan is so crazy, it actually works. In the next scene, they're back in the low-life's clubhouse writing the ransom note. Bud sees this as a chance to screw McCauley, so he suggests he ought to be worth $15,000 at least.

Hollywood's shady music business is making strange bedfellows. Bud has practically joined the gang. The gang leader even asks Bud for his autograph. They request that $15,000 should be left in a paper sack in the garbage can behind the Coffee Cup Cafe. 

When a low-life suggests they split the money four ways, Bud says he doesn't want any of it.

The ransom pick-up goes down, but Steak follows the lowlifes back to their clubhouse. He's a beast! Steak single-handedly beats the shit out of all of them. He recovers the money and McCauley passes the whole thing off as a publicity stunt. We see him on the phone telling somebody what a clever guy he is.

A day or two later at the Coffee Cup Cafe, Vicki is talking to Marge the waitress like she seems to do every day of the week. Marge has hired a new worker, "a drifter", she says. Vicki advises her to be careful.

"Bud!"

As the worker walks out from the kitchen, we see it is Bud! He's making an honest living and wearing a chef's hat!

Vicki can't help bringing up the night when Daisy was practically blowing Bud on the couch.

Vicki: "You seemed to be enjoying it! Did you?"

Bud: "NO!!"

Marge is eavesdropping.

Vicki: "I'm glad."

All is forgiven. Marge is eavesdropping and seems to be glad the couple are getting on with their relationship. 

Back at the office, McCauley is wheeling and dealing like usual. Steak is hanging around looking surly.

Suddenly a guy walks in asking for $20.00. He's wearing a colonel sanders tie and he threatens to tell the papers that Bud's kidnapping wasn't a publicity stunt if McCauley doesn't give him $20.00. For another $20.00, he tells McCauley that Bud is working at the Coffee Cup Cafe.

McCauley and Steak approach Bud after work and a lively discussion erupts. McCauley practically admits to cooking the books. Bud says he will work for McCauley again only on the condition they start with a new set of open accounting books. He also wants no part of any payola scheme, otherwise Bud will hire a new manager.

McCauley slaps Bud in the face, demanding, "You sing for me or you sing for no one!"  McCauley threatens to spread shady rumors about Bud in his hometown if he hires a new manager. Then he makes some vague and creepy threats regarding Vicki.

About this time, somebody yells out, "Hey Bud, we're out of tape"! It is the guy with the Colonal Sanders tie, who we discover is Bud's brother Ted! McCauley realizes he's been set up and his threats have been tape recorded on the very tape recorder he bought for Bud earlier in the film. There's a quick free-for-all where Bud beats the crap out of Steak, then cooler heads prevail.

"Twist Fever."

Well, what's a guy to do? Surprisingly, Bud still wants to work with McCauley as long as he cleans up his act. McCauley's intelligence and connections are just irreplaceable. They shake on the new honest business arrangement. If McCauley goes crooked again, Bud will release the tape to the police.

The final scene of the film treats us to kind of a music video of Bud's latest single, Twist Fever - "She's got twist fever and I just can't leave her alone." 

Dancing with abandon.

Vicki is his personal dancer now and she is by his side throughout his performance.

The kids are loving it! Everybody's having a ball and in one scene, we see them tucking real eagle feathers into the seat of Bud's motorcycle.

Conclusion - This movie was half of a two-film DVD I picked up at Dollar Tree in Santa Ana. It was worth the 50 cents I paid for it.

[ Reviewed December, 2007. ]

G-ville Timeline

Oct. 10, 2001 -  Quicktopic Message Board

The idea for an online message board came about shortly after Todd and Amanda’s wedding in late 2001. It seemed like a great way for our geographically dispersed family to stay in touch without exerting too much effort or expense.

Nick is the one who gave Gilliomville its name via AOL Instant Messenger when I was setting up the original message board and couldn’t think of anything to call it. He suggested, “Why not Gilliomville”?  Sounded good to me, and the name stuck.

The message board was much more of a hit than anybody expected. Soon Gillioms and Franks were posting to it pretty regularly from Indiana, Texas, Arizona, California, and Alaska.

Before long, there was talk of establishing a normal website where we could post photographs and be able to reach the message board with a simple mouse click.

In early 2002, I started archiving the message board posts in case we ever lost the Quicktopic site. I still have most of the archives, though two pages (part of December, 2001 and part of February 2002, I think) were corrupted and the information is no longer viewable. I tried to revisit these pages through the Quicktopic site, but they only save a limited number of posts (going back to 2004 as of last month). It’s possible the lost posts could be accessed by a paid membership, but I’m not willing to pay the $49 membership fee to find out.

Dec. 17, 2001 - Original Gilliomville Website

The first Gilliomville page was set up on a free Tripod account. It had the Gilliomville logo, a link to the message board, a list of Gilliom/Frank birthdays (compiled by Nancy Frank) and a Link of the Week. The first link of the week was a Fraser Fir Christmas Tree website in response to an ongoing message board discussion at the time. The idea of, “safety needles” really captured my imagination. I think the first full photo gallery was Todd and Amanda’s wedding gallery.

Gilliomville started growing from there, though we were limited by the Tripod account’s skimpy amount of free server space. We basically had a FAQ page and, eventually, a few photo galleries.

April, 2002 – Gilliomville.com

Gilliomville proper went into effect when we purchased the Gilliomville.com domain and some server space which was paid for by Uncle Jon and reimbursed by contributions from the Gillioms and Franks.

Gilliomville.com grew pretty big for its britches as we added all kinds of bells and whistles – extensive photo galleries, survey pages, and I don’t remember what all. It became a pretty high maintenance endeavor, but I had some time on my hands in those days. It actually kept me out of trouble by giving me something productive to occupy my time through some pretty sketchy times.

By this time, I was living in Los Angeles and had a stable address for the first time since late 1999. I left a lot of personal items in Uncle Jon’s garage when I left Alaska for Las Vegas at the end of 1999 and now these items started trickling back to me. I also acquired a scanner, so family photographs began to appear in the extensive Gilliomville galleries.

                                                                                 

December, 2006 - Messageboard “Upgrade”

By 2006, Gilliomville was running on server space provided at a substantial discount by an acquaintance from The Real World…Blogger Style! who also provided quite a bit of additional software options. In an attempt to make the message board more up-to-date and versatile, I installed a more powerful message board program which ran on our own server. The new message board included individual avatars, the ability to hotlink images inside posts, and all kinds of extra features.

The new message board met with quite a bit of resistance from the Gilliomville community. People didn’t like the logon process and some would-be participants experienced difficulty accessing the new board. I ran a poll asking what people thought of the new message board and only received one response, from cousin Nick Frank, stating, “It sucks.” So, by popular demand, I brought back the original Quicktopic message board. For a time, both boards were accessible from the main Gilliomville page, but Quicktopic was the clear favorite.

May, 2007 - Gilliomville.org

Due to a dispute with the irreputable Domain Registry of America, I allowed Gilliomville.com to expire in 2007. I purchased the Gilliomville.org domain for less than half what I was paying for Gilliomville.com (which wasn’t much, but it was the principle that companies shouldn’t price gouge domain names).

Also, at this time, the acquaintance who was providing our generous amount of discounted server space went into a different business altogether, so I purchase commercial server space. To keep costs down (and since I no longer had a lot of extra time on my hands), Gilliomville.org became a much leaner, low-maintenance website. I dropped the bulky photo galleries and most of the fluff, keeping Gilliomville confined to one page with links to the original Quicktopic Messageboard and to a Flickr account where a selection of Gilliomville photographs were stored.

[From "I Left My Heart in Gilliomville," 2008]

Cat Scan

Machete’s unintended self portrait after she fell asleep on the scanner. In the resulting image, you can discern a couple of paws at the bottom. Suitable for framing.

Machete on the scanner.

[ Originally posted on The Real World…Blogger Style! – August 25, 2007 ]

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. ]

Introducing: Tiggi!

When Tiggi met Stanley Wood.

Stanley did not take it well.

La Mex

Here's what I looked like in Santa Ana, 2006. At my favorite new taco place.

Pretty red.

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.

3 Things from Santa Ana

A few memories from a notebook I kept while living in Santa Ana in late 2006 before getting my first librarian job:

1.  A phone company tech came over to address a connection issue. He mentioned a $55 home visitation fee for just entering the house. Sandra brought the phone outside to him (we had a really long cord) and asked him to test the line outside for free. He did and the problem was due to faulty installation, so we were billed nothing for the repairs. 

2.  Theory - Cabrillo Park is the Bermuda Triangle of dogs. There are always different missing dog signs hanging on the phone poles over there.

3. The suspicion that our neighbors are selling drugs is supported by a recent incident in which the lady of the house brought over a tray of freshly baked cookies and commented, “We really appreciate neighbors who mind their own business.”

Pinata Upskirt

Pinata Upskirt.

[ Originally posted on The Real World…Blogger Style! – October 22, 2006 ]

Dackel Races

 Dachsund races at Old World Village, Huntington Beach.

Me w/ Dackel Races sign.

Dackel.

[Originally posted on JS Blog, July 11, 2006]