from the notebook

 

the 40th anniversary of live aid

i turned 18 a little over a month before this historic concert held on two stages in two different countries.  july 13 1985.  it was a saturday.  i don't remember seeing any ads or promos for this show.  but then i was a bit of a knucklehead & wasn't keyed into the schedules & itineraries of pop culture of the day.  still, i found myself watching this concert live on TV & remember phil collins who was dubbed the hardest working man in rock&roll for performing both in london & philadelphia, on the same day.  below is a snippet of collins being interviewed as he flew on the concorde going from the london gig to the philadelphia show.  an extraordinary feat of logistics, at the time.  a proof that we reside in nations, but we live in a global civilization.  the internet is further proof of it.    

as for the 40 years between now & then, that is the thing about time.  it continues to flow, at least for us humans, in one direction, which is the future.  still, the 1980s were hardly the dark ages.  indeed, it set up the world we live in now.  namely, that we do live in a global civilization.  in 1985 a call to the concorde to phil collins as he flies across the atlantic to play a show on both sides of the pond on the same day is proof of that.  

peace

the funhouse [1981]

 

i watched most of this flick last night & the remaining 20 minutes today because i was in the mood for a gritty early 1980s slasher.  instead, i found a kind of slasher that belies the tropes that were in development at the time of this movie's release.  tobe hooper (Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974]) directed this film from a screenplay by larry block about four midwestern teens - two couples - who double-date to a traveling carnival.  they decide to stay after closing & spend the night in the dark ride, the funhouse.

hooper really knows how create a tense, sweaty mise en scene.  the carnival is gritty.  hooper employed real carnies.  i got flashbacks to when i was a lad going to similar traveling carnivals, & even the CA State Fair, in the 1970s with same attractions, like the Freaks of Nature, & the barkers who try to entice you inside their tents to see the freaks & wonders of the world.

even so, hooper enjoys his own inner monster kid.  the final girl, amy, played by elizabeth berridge, has a younger brother with his bedroom decorated with horror & monster paraphernalia.  even her parents are watching on TV, as she sits with them waiting for her boyfriend to take her to the carnival, Bride of Frankenstein [1935].  so it comes as no shock to find that the dark ride the kids sneak into is a melange of old-timey carnival tropes & horror movie things. 

berridge does a fine job as the final girl, vulnerable, resilient, tough & lucky.  the FX was overseen by FX maestro rick baker.  the slasher is not a creature of fantasy or the supernatural.  yet he is a monster.  complete with a hideous visage & mien.  as for the plot, it is well-constructed.  the teens in peril seem to do what teens might really do in their predicament.  this was hooper's first major studio movie after the success of the TV miniseries, based on stephen king's novel, Salem's Lot [1979].  

the denouement might seem forced but after what we, & berridge, have been thru it might be best to let it go as it will.  all in all, this is a worthy slasher that unsettles the viewer & recreates the genre just as the slasher genre was finding its feet.  proof that tobe hooper is no mean director of my beloved genre of horror!

once upon a time a poet tried to sell you jeans on TV

a brief, ordinary scene

on my way to work, between i & 24th st, deep in my stride, mind empty but for the tasks waiting for me.  she had all her gear on the sidewalk in a black garbage bag.  'good morning. love your hair.  slicked back & silver,' she said to me.  'thank you very much.  that is kind of you to say.'  'i have colon cancer,' she said.  'that sucks.  i am so sorry.'  'thank you for saying that.  i don't get to talk to many people during the day.'  

self-portrait with crow

 

california nite

 

lo-fi poetics: 4th of july

fireworks 

sounds like gunfire 

outside the window

it will go on 

till 2 AM or longer

ordnance of the holiday

while we make BBQ dinners

& roll up on our 

fixins & misgivings

listening to

'4th of july' by the great punk band X

again

that you repeat your last name

both syllables

allow it to roll on the tongue

the mouth-feel of a name

your name 

& what is your name

those two syllables

are they controversy or outlaw

a name by any other 

as the neighborhood explodes 

in the faux drama of exploding bombs

wars & not-wars

ongoing 

for your name is like everyone else

your name is american

saturday the 14th [1981]

 

finally!  i watched this flick & lived to tell the tale.  & boy!  as the bard sez, it is a tale told by an idiot full of hubbub & amounts to nothing.  still, call me loco but i enjoyed this parody of the classic monster movies of yore.  the plot goes like this: married in real life couple richard benjamin & paula prentiss play john & mary hyatt.  the hyatts inherit a haunted house from their dead uncle.  a house of their own, finally!  so they pack up their things, & their kids, debbie hyatt, played by kari michaelson, & billy, played by kevin brando, & move in.

but you see we find a vampire couple, waldemar, played by jeffrey tambor, & yolanda, played by nancy lee andrews, complete in cheesy pancake makeup & black capes, trying to buy the house before the hyatts can move in.  why?  because inside the house is a book on the occult that if opened can unleash monsters that will destroy the world!  but our vampires are law-abiding citizens that cannot stop the hyatts from moving in.  they can only watch the family while sitting outside in their car.

lo!  young billy finds the book, unleashing, you guessed it, monsters galore.  one of these monsters is so fiendish he cleans the house & does the dishes for the family!  horrors!  still, waldemar is determined to get that book & will sneak in the house as a transformed bat,  mary hyatt thinks the bat is an owl until she gets a pair of puncture wounds on her neck from waldemar & starts to act a little goofy.

meanwhile, the monsters do what they do best by scaring the younger hyatts.  one scene has a shark fin swimming in a bathtub when young debbie is taking a bath.  another scene is a monster in billy's room.  when billy calls for his father to rescue him the monster hides, literally, hides, behind hyatt pere so that each time dad turn around the monster turns too.  dad can't see the monster, so everything is a-ok.   billy is left alone in his room with a monster.

what the hell are we gonna do now?  how about throw a housewarming party on saturday the 14th, a date, according to the van helsing, played by severn darden, who was brought in earlier by the family as an exterminator for their bat infestation, when all hell breaks loose if the monsters are allowed to roam free.  van helsing needs both the book & young billy to prevent the world from ending.  

but enough of the plot.  if my summation of the plot lacks coherence well blame it on the script.  directed, barely, by howard r. cohen, & produced by julie corman of new world pictures, this is a flick that can be appreciated by the most masochistic of horror movie lovers.  like me!  all principals ham it up big time.  benjamin & prentiss are game & make the most of a threadbare plot.  tambor is, as always, a pro in whatever role he plays.  young debbie can really scream her head off which makes me wonder why kari michaelson didn't become a scream queen.  

you could do worse than spend an evening with this pic.  especially if your evening involves copious amounts of mind-altering substances.  i kid!  i kid!  or do i?  since this is a movie that calls to mind the mom&pop video store era where you can judge a movie based on its VHS box art.  the run time is a merciful 76 minutes.  the plot is incoherent & goofy.  but the leads are fun.  there is a twist too at the end.  not every bad buy/good guy are what they first appear to be.  you could do worse by watching this movie.  but you could do better!

peace!