Reels N' Rockets

Best of 2008 (Hey, everyone else is doing it!)

2009-01-03T16:27:00.000-08:00

Remember when we were kids and we'd think of some far-flung year of thew new milennium and imagine all the Jetsons-esque technological wonders that were gonna transform our world into a utopia?

Well, here we are in the year two-thousand-and-freakin'-nine and not so much. Although, I must admit that I'm perpetually amazed that I carry around a phone the size of a deck of cards that also houses most of my CD collection. I also dig playing ROCK BAND with a pair of chicks who live three time zones away from me. C'mon, that's cool stuff.

It's been awhile. I planned on writing sooner but I got the insanely addictive LEFT 4 DEAD for Christmas and I've spent way too much time the past week trying to survive the zombie apocalypse and yelling fruitlessly at the impared teammates Xbox Live usually hooks me up with. I manage quite capably to fight off the hordes of the undead without setting myself and my partners on fire; Is it too much to ask that others mind where they're chucking that Molly?

Anyhow, I thought I'd jump back in by taking my turn at proclaiming my favorite crap from last year. I'm not big on trying to establish a pecking order, so I'm just calling a handful of favorites and am gonna try to limit myself to five of each for the sake of brevity.

MOVIES: IRON MAN; SUCH HAWKS, SUCH HOUNDS; THE DARK KNIGHT; THE WRECKING CREW; WALL-E; FROST/NIXON

Lemme just get it outta the way now and say that I have yet to see everyone's recent darlings, THE WRESTLER and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, so there's no need to ask why I'm not slobbering over them. And even if I had, I'd reserve the right to not include them on my list if so moved, so there. Should also be noted that 2k8 was the year I was introduced to the perverse beauty that is John Rad's DANGEROUS MEN, Diablo Cody hugged me, I met Frank Darabont, I finally saw THE LAST DRAGON on the big screen and I caught THE WARRIORS THREE FREAKIN' TIMES. Niiiice!

Should also, also be noted that I'd have to say my favorite cinematic moment of the year was seeing THE MOVIE ORGY. Consider myself very, very lucky to have been in the audience for that one.

ALBUMS: Consolers of the Lonely - The Raconteurs; Live At Roadburn - Earthless; Gods of the Earth - The Sword; Graveyard - Graveyard; The Darkness Won't Hide You - Night Horse; Float - Flogging Molly; Appeal To Reason - Rise Against; Stop, Drop and Roll!!! - Foxboro Hot Tubs

SONGS: "Carolina Drama" and "Many Shades of Black" - The Raconteurs, "Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians" - The Sword, "Wild International" - One Day As A Lion, "Re-Education (Through Labor)" - Rise Against

VIDEO GAME: ROCK BAND 2 (But LEFT 4 DEAD really is all kinds of awesome)

I should also mention that it was a really, really good year for concerts: Earthless (Three freakin' times!), The Sword (Also, twice), Graveyard (Twice), Night Horse (Three times; Woulda been 4 but I was sick and missed their record-release party), Nebula/Totimoshi/Chingalera @ The Viper Room, The Racounteurs (Big, huge thanks to Cat) and the newly-reformed STP (Twice. Thanks, Kish. Still can't believe you didn't go!)

Two thousand and eight will also go down as the year I discovered Garage Pizza on Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake. Seriously, it's worth going out of your way for.

Pics of the New Year's Eve STP show will come soon. As will a bunch of photos off of the old camera that was replaced by a new, buffer one for Christmas. In fact, we'll be featuring more pics and fewer words around here from now on. It'll leave me more zombie-killing time.

Congratulations PRESIDENT Obama

2008-11-06T08:14:00.001-08:00

...now get your ass to work.

Campaign Memories

2008-11-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

A. Thank God it's over. Now, let's hope the right guys wins.

B. Please read Matt Taibbi's latest blog, wrapping up the seemingly endless campaign season.

Maybe I've had too much of the Obama Kool Aid, but I truly do think that the media's fully in the tank for him because he has by and large run an excellent campaign and rised above the multiple character assassination attempts made on him first by the Clintons and then recently the Grumpy Old Man/Homecoming Queen ticket.

I do like Obama, but I don't want to. I want to be able to say I'm voting for the lesser of two evils, that they all suck and that we should just burn Washington to the ground like everyone else seems to claim. But the dude sold me on the promises that he'd govern with compassion and intelligence and that we'd actually face the mountain of problems that's crushing this country's collective will instead of trying to ignore them or blame them all on homos who want to get married and irresponsible black people.

Now I'm hoping he has a chance to deliver and then actually follows through.

Wall Street: Less Responsible Than a Coked-Out NFL Running Back

2008-10-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

The reason I keep pimping Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is because I inevitably go, "Damn, I never thought of it that way" every time I read one of his essays. I probably do that because he's a helluva lot smarter than I am.

Wall Street: Less Responsible Than a Coked-Out NFL Running Back

Damn, I never thought about Great Depression v.2.0 that way.

But I did think of the Republicans' plan to pin their mess on liberals and poor minorities this way, taken from an earlier Taibbi blog:

There aren’t enough low-income minority homeowners in the remaining years of human history to create $62 trillion worth of pressure on the economy. You’ve got not billions but trillions of dollars tied up in the Wall Street equivalent of a craps game – the ruling class of the earth gambling away the whole world’s bank deposits on a dice roll, which is about as irresponsible a use of resources as can be imagined – and guys like York want to blame the blowout on a few black people who tried to do something absolutely and completely sensible with their money, buying houses they intended to live in.

I'd love nothing more than to offer a link to his blog, but I'll also keep pimping him to you all just in case.

Peace Through Rock & Roll

2008-10-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

I guess it goes without saying that I pre-ordered Guitar Hero World Tour, but through some scheduling snafus I really didn't get any time with my new game until yesterday when I played the hell outta it.

Cliff Notes Review: Loads of fun; Great additions like drum and vocal tracks, create-a-rocker/guitar, loads of cameos, an Amoeba Records stage and an improved battle system that's more in the spirit of the game. Instead of beating them with tricks like snapped strings or amp overloads, you just gotta keep up with them in an intense jam session without getting booed off stage. This last touch goes with a much-needed step down in difficulty from the insanely hard Guitar Hero 3, which was often too brutal and competitive to be fun.

That said, I do prefer Rock Band, largely because of the setlist. Between the songs I've saved on the hard drive from the first game, the ones I've downloaded and those included in the second edition, it's a badass playlist that has a lot of tunes I absolutely love. There are some nice ones on GH4, but it lacks the "I gotta have that one" factor that the previous music games had. Definitely the weakest rundown to date.

Nonetheless, something very cool happened the other day as I finally got acquainted with both the game and the wonderful world of playing online.

You randomly get placed in a band and have nothing to go on in these anonymous gaming encounters except a screen name and character. Early on during the experience I found myself in a band with Dr Ice Berg and DiabolikLord. I'm not one for chit-chat, so I keep the headset that allows you to talk with your fellow gamers turned off. But upon being placed in this new band I was greeted with a strange "R0CKET King...Allllllooooooo, R0CKET Kiiiing?" coming from my speakers.

My silence was interrupted by the *other* bandmate, who began speaking German of all things. Then the first responded in kind. Soon, I was privy to a conversation that was likely taking place halfway around the world. I couldn't understand much...Actually I couldn't understand a damn thing that was said except when they mentioned a song title.

"Ich bin ein 'Love Removal Machine'"

"Ich möchte spielen 'Hot For Teacher'"

The funniest bit came when one of the dudes said something to the effect of, "Was wenn wir spielten 'The Joker' (Mimicing song's signature guitar effect) Weeeeeeet-wooooooo"

So as we ripped through a few songs, this gave me a vision of a better tomorrow, one in which a generation who have learned understanding and cooperation with people different than they are through years of joining forces via Xbox Live to hammer out Bullet For My Valentine songs stop blowing each other up over their nationalistic, religious or cultural differences.

Peace through rock & roll...Just like Rufus said it would be.

The Death of a Red State

2008-10-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is another Rolling Stone essay written by the brilliant author of the Sarah Palin essay I pimped here a couple weeks ago.

The Death of a Red State

The author validates a hope I've long held; Racism, if not dead, is at least in critical condition in this country and Obama's color and exotic name really won't be issues for most of the voters 9 days from now. If true, it would explain the GOP's sudden struggles as they no longer have the same tried and true villains to use as a distraction.

The geeks shall inherit the Earth

2008-10-23T11:38:00.001-07:00

Woman Arrested After Murdering Online Ex-Husband

I say throw the freakin' book at her. If some psycho chick messes with my musicians on Rock Band she better pray that the authorities get to her before I do.

What you should be watching every Wednesday

2008-10-23T08:49:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Here goes motorcycle boy telling us to watch a show about guys on bikes. Big f'n surprise, jerky.

The motorcycles in "Sons of Anarchy" are irrelevant, much like they matter little to the real life motorcycle clubs (Don't use the "g" word) the titular crew is based on. It's part of the culture and nothing more. This show just flat-out kicks ass.

"SoA" is the first episodic television show that I've followed since the "The Sopranos" bowed, and comparisons between the two are obvious. It's the tale of a crime family, only the Sons (Or SAMCRO: Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals, in case you heed my advice and then wonder where the name comes from) wears patched leather vests and wallet chains instead of velour track suits and medallions. The most important comparison, though, is that both are amazing series that raise the bar on what we should expect from TV.

The program is intelligently written, shockingly dark without being overindulgant, and brilliantly acted; Patricularly Katey Sagal who is so amazing as the ruthless, calculating matriarch of the club that after a handful of eps that it's getting harder to remember that she played Peg Bundy for what seemed like half of my life.

As I said earlier, "SoA" will immediately remind you of "The Sopranos," but it would actually be more apt to compare "Sons" to Hamlet. Wouldn't you agree that a show with a pedigree that includes Tony Soprano and Bill Shakespeare may be worth your space on the DVR and hour every week?

I'm in love...

2008-10-21T13:24:00.001-07:00

It's called the Suzuki Gladius (Which, I believe, is Latin for sword), and unlike that badass Honda I drooled over awhile back, this bad boy will be available stateside very, very soon.

On top of being minimalist without being boring, it's based on the SV650 motor Suzuki has been building since Jesus was a child, so you know it's bombproof. I imagine it'll be even hotter with a proper set of bar-end mirrors replacing those bug-eyed deals the factory installs and a fender eliminator on for a cleaner profile on the backside.

With a $6,000-ish pricetag, I think you might see one beneath my ass moving very, very quickly up the 101 very, very soon.

Remember that Axl Rose guy?

2008-10-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Well apparently it really is go time for Chinese Democracy for reals as Axl and company continue to try to pull a massive viral tease by blitzing the 'net with a ton of promo videos only to pull them all just as quickly. This is following a couple years worth of "unauthorized leaks" of both songs and press releases that would promise drop dates which never materialized.

Why does it feel any different this time? Well, they rolled out an exclusive deal with Best Buy and iTunes. Axl may have been stringing what few fans he has left and his label along for 14 years now, but I don't believe for a second that he can get over on a pair of retail giants. If they're offering presales, then I'm a believer.

Now, if only I could be bothered to care. Sorry, but Axl has long chewed through every ounce of good will I ever had for him despite the fact that he's responsible for both my all-time favorite album and song.

I don't hold many grudges, so I'll swoop on a copy if I like what I hear. But Axl's gotta earn his way back into my good graces, much like Metallica did recently after they too spent a decade and a half killing their legacy.

Dubb-ya

2008-10-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

After literally spending all-night at the New Bev watching a slew of, uh, let's be diplomatic and call them "interesting" horror films (Stay tuned for that story), I did the only rational thing a human being would do on Sunday and (Following a power nap) saw another scary movie, W.

Very interesting film, this one, focusing much more on the man himself and everything that shaped him than most of the events that will define his presidency. Oddly enough, though, the man is largely defined by the influence that several people in the background wield over him.

The first act deals with his younger years that are defined by alcoholism, several failed careers and the constant disappointment of his family, who very clearly favor Jeb Bush. The second is his redemption as he marries Laura Bush, gets sober, finds Christ, becomes governor of Texas much against his family's wishes and without their support and, ultimately, ascends to the presidency in what he believes is his divine calling. This leads to a third act that isn't his presidency but merely the Iraqi invasion, and I was really surprised at how sympathetic Oliver Stone seems to be toward Bush. Stone very clearly places the blame for the fiascos the world has suffered the last eight years largely on the same three shoulders most of us do:

Donald Rumsfeld: A loose cannon who seizes control of the Iraqi invasion in its infancy.

Dick Chaney: The quiet manipulator who understands how to finesse the headstrong, stubborn president as well as take advantage of his inattention to detail.

Karl Rove: Always lurking in the shadows. You can't always see him but you know he's there. He's a puppeteer who settles for pulling Bush's strings from behind the curtain because he doesn't have what it takes to stand behind the podium himself.

Ultimately, though, the film places a lot of blame on George senior, who is cold, distant and seemingly offers his son nothing but constant reminders of what a disappointment he is as the younger George blunders his way through the first half of his life. The film subltly argues that George Jr's heart is in the right place, but the misguidance of the Rumsfeld/Chaney/Rove triumverate as well as his burning desire to separate himself from his father and clearly define his own presidency leads to the foolish desicion to invade Baghdad.

So much has been written over the last few years about Bush's presidency that the film confidently chronicles the Iraqi blunders without any undue malice. Most of my disappointment over the past few years has fallen on Colin Powell, and this movie cements it. The film doesn't presuppose Chaney and Rumsfeld's motivation, but it doesn't take much conspiracy theory to assume why men who made fortunes in the war and oil businesses would want to go to war over oil. Powell was the one guy in the room who knew better; The voice of reason who tried to cut through the cabinet's hubris by telling them in no uncertain terms that not only is the invasion wrong it isn't going to be nearly as easy as they think it will be. I cringed and shuffled in my seat as I watched his futile battle with the Chaney/Rumsfeld two-headed beast for the president's influence, and my heart breaks as the film later shows Powell stand before the United Nations and effectively sell an invasion that he doesn't believe in.

The other very interesting figures are his enablers: Laura Bush and Condeleeza Rice. The first-lady crosses him once and learns never to do it again. Though he isn't abusive, she learns his fiery temper is just best to be avoided. Rice never offers anything but affirmation to the president. She doesn't cross Chaney or Rumsfeld, she doesn't back Powell and she never expresses even a hint of disatisfaction or anything resembling an opposing viewpoint. What other type of wife/secretary of state could've survived with such a bullish figure? Maybe we should ask the one who resigned shortly after his appearance before the U.N.

I've spoken a lot about the film's message and very little about its nuts and bolts. W. is very effective, and the peformances are strong. (Particularly Josh Brolin as W. and a frighteningly balls-on portrayal of Cheney by Richard Dreyfuss.) But the film geek in me couldn't help but take a back seat to the pissed-off American who's disgusted at the mess his country has created.

Wisdom from the mouth of Savage Steve Holland

2008-10-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

As Election Day draws nearer and I get more and more concerned about who this dumbass country of our might elect (Sorry, I just don't trust polls), things are indeed gonna get a little political on my little corner of the blogosphere, so deal.

As McCain gets increasingly desperate, he's shfting the talk away from trivial things like facts and the issues and his new gameplan is to convince us all that we shouldn't like a terrorist lover like Obama, who no doubt seeks the White House so he can destroy this country he hates so much from the inside.

I find it very funny that he sends his attack bunny Palin to do the serious smear work, which I suppose is the role of a VP candidate. But hearing this hateful, cheap rhetoric come from a brainless bit of crumpet like her reminds me of one of my favorite childhood films, ONE CRAZY SUMMER.

The animated segements that served as a Greek chorus for the wackiness featured a gang of "cute and fuzzy bunnies" who terrorized our hero's animated counterpart. Their sweet outward appearance disguised their evil, hateful nature.

Seem familiar?

GET'IM A BODY BAAAAG!

2008-10-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

A few facts you may not know about the driving force behind the single greatest cinematic montage...EVER!

Mad Dog Palin

2008-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm gonna ring the second recess bell here and call everyone into class for a moment.

I make it a point to only talk matters of frivality here, first and foremost because I'm a guy who is absolutely, passionately, madly in love with his frivilous pursuits. But also because I do have a pretty serious job in which calls on me to frequently watch people die. I like to think I handle it pretty well by never, ever bringing it home with me and by being as much of a child as I possibly can be when I'm not at work.

That said, I'm not a total jackass. I do keep an eye on current events, and like to think I'm way more up on global affairs than the average American, which I know ain't saying much. Our country's current direction nearly brings me to tears. I spent the first four years of the Bush regime hating our president, but I've spent the past four hating my countrymen for giving this guy another term. He is who he is, but we should know better.

Which leads me to this:

Mad Dog Palin

This is the most brilliant opinion piece I've ever read, and I implore you all to read it. It's not so much an attack on one of the VP candidates as it is a biting and balls-on condemnation of America.

If you don't feel like slogging through this, I'll give you the one 'graph that succinctly sums up my feelings heading into this election and why I'm voting the way I am:

So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in.

Amen.

I'm on a mission from God...

2008-10-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

Been awhile, I know, but I've been easily distracted (i.e. Trying to complete Rock Band 2) lately, so I haven't downloaded the seemingly endless backlog of photos off of my camera let alone sat down to pontificate about said photos.

But, I have a rare quiet moment here at work right now, so I'm abusing my access to the Internet to relay a couple antecdotes, the first being a story born from my last rare quiet moment at work.

Free time is a dangerous things in the hands of my coworkers and I. Mayhem always ensues if we don't have deathly ill or broken patients to tend to. People get taped to their seats, gurneys or swivel chairs are raced down the hallways, Wile-E.-Coyote-esque weaponry is built out of medical supplies or, in the most innocuous cases, strange, strange conversations are held.

The most recent had to do with "it"s. "It Girls" and "It Guys"; Whatever you may be into. People shared their all-times, with varying degrees of weirdness. I don't have many celebrity crushes. Most actresses don't do it for me, and even fewer models do. There are a few hot musicians, but if she sucks then that pretty much kills my buzz. And considering that the vast majority of new music sucks, well, you can figure it out.

It came to be my turn, and though I hadn't thought about it in awhile, there really is one clear-cut all-time "It Girl": Miki Berenyi.

Only hardcore Doom-Generation music geeks remember Miki or Lush, the band she fronted in those heady Bill Clinton days. They didn't get as much pub as fellow Britpoppers Blur or especially Oasis, the latter of which was pretty much the biggest band in the world for awhile. However, Lush had a phenomenal sound, in large part thanks to Miki's vocals.

The Britpop label doesn't do Lush justice. Their sound was more dream pop: The hazy, etherial alternative stuff that served as the forerunner to trip hop. The Smashing Pumpkins often veered into dream pop territory. ("Today"; "Tonight, Tonight" or "1979", for example.) The Sundays and Mazzy Star were also very similar, with sounds built on jangly guitars and etherial female vocals.

But Lush did dream pop better than anyone; Even the insanely brilliant Billy Corgan. Their sound was more aggressive without getting heavy. The guitars were fuzzy, but they churned out beautiful, sunny melodies that framed Miki's dreamy, shimmering voice.

I imagine that it also didn't hurt that Miki was hotter than doughnut grease.

I first discovered Lush the same place I discovered most new music in the '90s: MTV's 120 Minutes. I know I'm dating myself by mentioning a time when MTV actually featured music.

The flaming Ferrari-red hair, the British accent, the ambiguously ethnic features: Every alterna-geek was immediately in love with Miki, Especially in Europe where Lush made more of a splash. Sadly, they only lasted a few years and a couple albums before internal tension and a band member's suicide derailed the group. But Lush's music still holds up a decade later ("De-Luxe" is a track on Rock Band 2...Just sayin') and Miki has never relented her position as my all-time "It Girl."

Naturally, no one involved in the conversation that prompted the wave of Miki nostalgia had ever even heard of Miki or Lush. Everyone just kinda looked vacant and quickly moved to the next person.

On an unrelated note, I recently was given the role of determining the Greatest Song Ever. Don't argue, because this thing has come down from up on high. It'd be blasphemous to say God spoke to me, but I just kinda know this is what he wants me to do.

It changes frequently, as I just hear something, usually a song that's well travelled, and suddenly have an epiphany that this is the Greatest Song Ever. It's happened a few times over the past few months.

First it was "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. Then it was Twisted Sister's hair-metal anthem "I Wanna Rock." Things got a little prog the last couple months as "Carry On Wayward Son" had a go, as did Foreplay/Long Time."

But there was another changing of the guard a couple days ago during yet another boredom-fueled conversation...

"Purple Rain" is clearly the Greatest Song Ever.

Rock Band 2 observations

2008-09-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

* Big, huge, superepic props to Harmonix for curing my "Brick Wall Syndrome." (BWS)

Lemme explain: Inevitably on one of these games I'll run into a song I simply have absolutely no hope whatsoever of playing. On GUITAR HERO 2, it was "Carry Me Home" by Living End.

GH3 stopped me dead with Slayer's "Raining Blood" (I'd last about 13 seconds) and "One" by Metallica. (The latter really pissed me off b/c it's one of the most brilliant songs ever recorded and I'd always get about 5 minutes into it before the furious change would thwart me. At least Slayer saved me the time by kicking my ass really early.)

The original ROCK BAND had a whoppin' three on the final setlist: "Flirtin' With Disaster" by Molly Hatchet, "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws and the timeless "Highway Star" by Deep Purple.

All of the aforementioned songs became known as brick walls. My progress was immediately halted and I had no recourse save ramping the difficulty down to Hard and starting the whole freakin' game over again. Along with a bruised ego, it also made for some boring freakin' gameplay as the Hard setting is too easy. On top of having fewer notes to hammer out, they scroll down way more slowly than on the Expert setting; Way too slow, in fact. So slow that I would miss notes by getting impatient and belting them out in anticipation of when they'd finally arrive at the bottom of the screen.

Harmonix came up with the genius solution of allowing you to choose the difficulty of each song you play as you play them instead of picking a setting at the beginning and being locked into it. I'll never be able to play prog-metal icon Dream Theatre's "Panic Attack", which is arguably the hardest freakin' song ever included in one of the games. At least as hard as "Through the Fire and Flames" by Dragonforce on GH3. But no worries, I can take things down to a more manageable Hard, beat the song, then continue doing my thing on Expert without losing my progress. Nice.

They also solved the second problem associated with BWS by adding a Hyperspeed Mode, which, on Hard, makes the notes scroll a little faster than they would on Expert. I love you, Harmonix programmers.

* Five most fun songs to play (In no particular order)
"Everlong" by Foo Fighters

"Anyway You Want It" by Journey (Most of it anyhow. The second solo is insane.)

"Hungry Like The Wolf" by Duran Duran (Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are.)

"Alex Chilton" by The Replacements (Trust me: You know this song even if the title doesn't look familiar.)

"You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morrisette (Would've never thought this would be included in a game like this, and definitely would've never thought it would be so fun to play.)

* Axl Rose has graced us with one of the songs off of the Chinese Democracy album that he's been working on for 10 FREAKIN' YEARS NOW. Think I'm kidding? Everyone in G'N'R quit in 1994, Rose replaced them and began recording this thing in early '98. We're actually going on 11 freakin' years now, and, while we're doing the math, this would be Guns' first original studio album since the Use Your Illusion double albums dropped...In 1991. Yes, "November Rain" is older than some college kids.

ANYWAY, with no actual release date in sight for the album, "Shackler's Revenge" has debuted on the game and if this is what this album is gonna sound like then he can take another 11 freakin' years working on it. Hard to describe, but it sounds like Axl Rose doing his best impersonation of Trent Reznor circa-'94. Starting to think that the sheer, Godly brilliance of Appetite For Destruction was an abberation considering all the vastly inferior music these guys have recorded in various bands during the 20 years since.

* Why are Tenacious D songs so insanely hard to play on these games? It's Jack Black's joke band, for cryin' out loud.

* I really want my $75 figurine.

OK, gotta get back to work. "Carry On Wayward Son" ain't gonna beat itself.

Dreams and Plastic Guitars

2008-09-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

Make no mistake about it, Rock Band 2 is the single greatest thing ever, replacing the previous single greatest thing ever: Rock Band 1. The folks at Harmonix deserve a Nobel Prize for this one.

The changes from the already great original installment to the mindblowingly epic sequel would seem pretty minor if you saw them on paper, but it's these tweaks in the gameplay that are responsible for the game's instant legendary status.

The single-player mode is now the same as the multi, which includes a series of challenges instead of just a collection of increasingly difficult setlists. Each city has individual songs that have to be beat as well as setlists you make, mystery setlists and, in a really nice touch for music geeks, city-specific setlists. Los Angeles has a setlist of So.Cal. bands. (Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Silversun Pickups, Offspring and Rage Against the Machine, off the top of my head.) San Fran has a classic-rock setlist in honor of the Haight-Ashbury scene and Montreal has, you guessed it, songs by Canadians.

The game's flaws are only minor. One of the improvements is the ability to design your bandmates, so you aren't stuck with strange-looking computer-generated choices that don't jive with your character or each other. The drawback, however, is that it doesn't automatically change vocalists when you come across a song sung by someone of a different gender than the last. Very, very strange to hear Hayley Williams' voice coming out of a dude.

Some of the 80-odd songs included in the game are questionable choices. "So What'cha Want" by the Beastie Boys and Beck's "E-Pro" are two of the worst possible choices they could've made. Not only does the bassline and guitar track on each of these songs only consist of a strange intermittant riff, but the drum beats are identical. Not similar, identical. Beck heavily sampled "So What'cha Want" for this particular song, including a straight rip of the drum track. One song for the price of two.

Most of the songs, however, are brilliant choices; A great mix of genres and eras. One of the things I've discovered from owning a few of these games now is that some of the worst, cheesiest songs make for the best gameplay. I'm violently allergic to most music made in the mid-to-late '80s, but damn if "Livin' on a Prayer" ain't more fun than a room full of monkeys on crank.

In a stroke of genius, Harmonix is looking to further cash in on talentless frustrated never-will-bes like me by offering 6" figures of your custom character via their website in the near future. Having always dreamt of being both a rock star and having my own action figure, you can imagine how hard I geeked when I saw the images down below...

Yeah, there's $75 down the drain.

God Gave Rock & Roll To You

2008-09-12T05:27:00.001-07:00

A day without rock and roll is far worse than a day without sunshine. I went to school in San Francisco for two years during which the sun only came out about seven times. Asking me to go an entire day without big, fat beats and fuzzed out guitars, however, is expecting the impossible.

It was a very, very sunny day last weekend when The Echoplex hosted nine stoner-rock bands, including Earthless, that real-live bunch from San Diego that is pretty much the single greatest band on the planet.

My dear friend Daisy (aka Day-Z) was my hook-up for this event, which was an added bonus since we don't get to hang out nearly enough these days. She had something to do that afternoon, so I was flying solo for the first couple bands until she joined me.

Day-Z's tardiness turned out to be a blessing for her. For starters, the doors didn't open until after 4 even though the tix said the event would begin at 3. If you haven't been to Echo Park recently, consider yourself lucky. To call it a crappy neighborhood would be giving the area far too much credit.

Things got started (just before 5) with a band who stumbled through an uninspired but mercifully short set in front of the handful of us who were punctual. It wasn't a bad band, per se, but there was nothing to really distinguish them or motivate me to give any of their music a listen.

Things picked up quickly, though, when Night Horse strafed the place. This five-piece set from Los Angeles was a revelation, featuring a snarling, hyperkenetic front-man; a tight, relentless rhythm section and a riff-tastic sound centered around a pair of lead guitarists that had a very-late '70s Detroit feel to it. (The same kinda stuff that The Racounteurs draw from for inspiration.)

A little post-concert homework revealed their debut EP is going to drop in the coming weeks and they nailed down at least one surefire sale with their scorching set. Now we were in business.

One of Night Horse's guitarists pulled double duty as he stuck around to front the next band on the bill, The Ancestors. This was by far the ticket's heaviest band, with a downtempo sound built on a seriously detuned guitar and a bass amp so loud that you could feel it in your chest cavity.

I'm not much of a doom metal fan, but The Ancestors were joined at the end of their set by a blonde girl who laid down a pretty lyricless vocal that offered a nice counterpoint to the band's sludgy sound. It reminded me of a heavy "Great Gig In The Sky" and was definitely the highlight of the set.

Day-Z arrived in time to see San Francisco's Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, who had been touring with my beloved Earthless the last couple months, offer one of the bill's most interesting sets. We were intruiged the moment I saw them set up a theremin, which, for the uninitiated, is one of the first electric instruments and is best known for giving the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" the eerie haunted-house sound that accompanies the chorus. Sweet!

I really dug Assemble Head's sound, but am having a hard time trying to find ways to describe it. Theirs is a very ecelectic mix that encapsulates the sum of rock from the late-'60s through the mid-'70s: Kinda blusey, kinda spacey with a bit of dirty guitar to give it some teeth. It was such a great set that I immediately hit the merch table to pick up their CD, which I've really dug in the days since.

It's also worth noting that they had a cute hippy chick playing bass and keys, which is always a huge plus for a band. Halfway through the bill and two bands have been CD-purchase-worthy. Business was definitely picking up.

The good times continued with Graveyard, who were just plain brilliant! Incredible musicians and great songwriters who laid down very complex tracks with a lot of tempo changes and titanic drum breaks.

Most of the bill draws heavily from Black Sabbath for inspiration; It's kind of a given that retro-metal bands will look to the guys who invented the sound. But there's a lot more psychadelic blues reminiscent of Cream and Zeppelin in Graveyard than most of the bill.

It was the bill's third CD-purchase worthy offering, and Day-Z was particularly impressed with this Swedish band. And here we thought our friends to the far north were only good for boxy, reliable cars; cheap furniture and, of course ABBA.

I'll consider Graveyard as reparations for all of the above. All is now forgiven, Sweden.

That's bassist Mike Eginton.

Dude on the drum kit is Mario Rubalcaba.

And this is Isaiah Mitchell. Collectively they go by the name Earthless. Immediately contact the police if you see any of them because they killed a few hundred metalheads that night with an incindiary set that left a huge crater where the concert venue previously stood.

Think I'm gushing a little too much over Earthless? Then you've never heard them before. I've never heard a band that was so unrestrained and otherworldly without veering away from rock and roll into experimental noise. Earthless most definitely rocks. Rubalcaba and Eginton are the backbone; a tight unit that effortlessly seques from pushing the riff that forms the loosest of song structure for their jams while occasionally changing things up with a double-or-triple time outburst and some devestating seven-megaton beats.

Mitchell is nothing short of mind blowing, weaving an effects-laden guitar tapestry that melts the face of all who dare not avert their gaze. Like the rythm section, Mitchell switches gears many time during the set. Etherial sitar-like lullabies give way to massive, Earth-shattering riffs that explode into crushing tsunamis of wah-wah and feedback. Mitchell colors in the spaces between the riffs with inspired, seemingly endless, head-popping solos the likes of which I've never heard before.

I discovered Earthless at The Silent Movie Theatre a couple months back where they performed following a screening of the stoner-rock doc SUCH HAWKS, SUCH HOUNDS. I proceeded to fall in love with their glorious sound from their first note up until the LAPD shut 'em down about 40 heavenly minutes later. I scooped up the two records they've released over the past three years, and they are nothing like anything I've heard before: Old-school psychadelic metal with a jazz sensibility from three insanely brilliant musicians.

Now after seeing them perform a proper set without fear of Johnny Law killing our buzz, love has given way to infatuation. I'm not the only one, either. Seemingly every musician on the undercard lined the sides of the stage to watch them do their thing. Day-Z also developed a bad case of Isaiah Mitchell. I had the pleasure of meeting the master at the merch table after I'd recovered from their set ("Don't look him directly in the eye and be sure to call him 'sir'" I warned Day-Z) where he sold me a shirt ("You should ask him to sleep in it and then give it to me" Day-Z suggested) and gave me a head's up on a live disc recorded during a European festival that's going to drop next month. Nice!

As a postscript, Day-Z was a little bent a few minutes later when she saw the cute hippy chick from Assemble Head cozy up to Mitchell at the merch table. She had some less-than-kind words for hippychick, but I offered that the pairing could have children that would end poverty, cure all disease and benevolently rule the utopia they'd create.

Co-headliner Witch wrapped things up, and they were a great outfit. Unfortunately, for them, it was now midnight and I was getting pretty rocked out and hungry by this point. Also, Graveyard and Earthless are tough, tough acts to follow. But, I dug Witch's heavy, riffy sound enough to buy their CD and give them a listen when they have my undivided attention.

What a beautful, loud day it was, the remnants of which I got to enjoy for the next 36 hours, which is when the
constant ringing in my ears finally abated. Permanent hearing damage has never been so much fun.

Eric Vs. "Big" Jim Martin

2008-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yet another in a series of public cries for help as I cannot for the life of me get five stars on "Epic" by Faith No More in Rock Band. The four-and-three-quarters-star glass ceiling is proving to be unbreakable.

This continues a painful trend when it comes to me and my obsession with music video games: The more I love a song, the worse I play it.

This trend now spans several games. It started with "Sweet Child o'Mine" on Guitar Hero II. The song's signature riff always gave me fits.

It continued with "Knights of Cydonia" on GH III, which I never could get a handle on. My inability to play neither the long strumming sections at the beginning or the sci-fi interlude before the song's furious finish often sent my blood pressure through the roof.

And now "Epic," which would definitely be on a very short list of my all-time favorite songs. I can play most of it pretty well, but I can't handle the solo which ends with an insane series of hammer-ons and pull-offs that my clumsy fingers can't even begin to comprehend.

I take this matter a bit too seriously, as I eventually come to blame the guitarists who originally played these songs for my lack of skill and come to despise them. That said, FNM guitarist Jim Martin is my latest arch-nemesis.

Trust me, you're familiar with the dude even if you aren't the rock-&-roll-aphile that I am. Remember the video for "Epic", with the fish flopping on the ground? Or how about the opening minutes of BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY that are set in the utopia created by the universal love of Wyld Stallyns? Then I'm sure you remember this guy...

If any of you ever see Martin, tell him I hate him.

Labor Day, You Jive Suckah

2008-09-08T13:03:00.001-07:00

I continue to be impressed and enamored with The CineFamily's set-up at the Silent Movie Theatre. As if the lure of seeing long-forgotten and extremely rare gems as well as amazing music documentaries from the comfort of a plush couch wasn't enough, bossman Hadrian is prone to moments of demented genius like the insane Five-Minute Game the theatre hosted on Labor Day.

Get your mind out of the gutter for a moment. The five-minute game isn't what you played in junior high when you were locked in a closet at a party with a member of the opposite sex (hopefully) while someone stood outside the door with a stopwatch. This is something Hadrian said was born during his video store days as a game for geeks by geeks.

Occasionally after the store closed, the employees would scramble to all corners of the building to unearth the most obscure title they could find. The kind of thing that never, ever, ever got rented. Hadrian said it was key to look for layers of dust on top of the video box or seriously faded color on the box art done by years of sun damage.

The geeks would then scramble back to the VCR where everyone would watch exactly five minutes of each title, the rationale being that every movie is good for at least the first five minutes. Everyone would vote on which they wanted to watch in its entirety, and the winning film would roll.

Brilliant, right?

The game was preceded by one of the semi-regular CineFamily cookouts, which is yet another stroke of genius. If you haven't read any of my earlier blogs about the Silent Movie Theatre, they have a swanky back patio with a barbecue which occasionally is opened up for a BYOM throwdown. Pimpadelic Wonderland, the house disc/video jockey and Hadrian's co-conspirator, spins tunes while the geeks try not to burn themselves and chow down on some grub and several cans of Tecate, which always seem to be in abundance at the theatre.

Fellow New Beverly regular Michael and I grilled for a bit before the preceeding, my veggie-dogs sharing real estate on the jam-packed barbecue with his swanky chicken-apple sausages. Chewing became a luxury we couldn't afford as Hadrian summonsed the geeks into the theatre shortly after cooking was completed.

Ballots were waiting on the seats, and though I was sure I'd have heard of at least a couple of the 15 titles, none of them rang even a tiny bell. Hadrian and one of the video-store geeks who helped create the game explained its genesis and the rules before the parade of cinematic abominations began.

And an interesting mix it was, indeed. TOOMORROW (That's not a typo), a lightweight Olivia Newton-John disco sci-fi thing, kicked things off and seriously worried me. I make no secret of my severe hatred of all things disco, especially when disco and cinema are joined in an unholy union. All we needed was a couple people like New Bevver/disco-musical lover Jen in the crowd and I'd spend 90 minutes in Hell.

My fears were doubled a little later when a disco horror film, NOCTURNA, also reared its ugly head. (Damn thing even had the balls to promise appearances by one-hit wonders Gloria Gaynor and Vicki Sue Robinson in the opening credits.)

Most of the films were terrible, and not in a potentially entertaining way. I gathered few of them had a chance, so I only remained fearful of being stuck with one of the disco films. SECOND SIGHT, an utterly forgettable late-'80s piece of cable fodder comedy with Bronson Pinchot playing a psychic detective and John Larroquette playing...Uh, Hell if I remember...was the only one I had ever seen before let alone heard of, as it turned out.

There were only two I really wanted to see, the first being Z.P.G. (Stands for Zero Population Growth) which looked like a laughable bit of socially conscious '70s sci-fi in which world leaders on a smoggy, insanely overpopulated Earth try to fend off the apocalypse by banning reproduction for a generation. We caught a glimpse of a youngish Oliver Reed during the film's five minutes, and I imagine he kicked the crap out of his agent once filming wrapped.

Z.P.G. had potential, but my clear-cut choice was DEATH PROMISE, which I fell head-over-heels in love with from the moment it opened with an aerial view of a pair of dudes (One of which was a black dude rocking a physics-defying afro) jogging through Central Park in matching banana yellow track suits accompanied by a funky "Death Promise" theme song which sounded like something from the late Isaac Hayes, only much, much worse.

An unintentionally hilarious voiceover explains that landlords will often go to extreme measures to drive tenants out of rent-controlled buildings in order to replace them with residents who will have to pay a higher rate. When this happens, the victims are only left with one choice...

...to FIGHT!

The non-afro sporting jogger then thwarts an attack by a couple of landlord-sponsored goons on an elderly neighboy by using some of the clumsiest martial arts ever captured on celluloid before DEATH PROMISE's five minutes were up.

It was EPIC!

We adjourned to the patio for more grilling while the votes were tallied. DEATH PROMISE was getting a lot of buzz around the barbecue and did receive a rocking ovation, so I liked its chances. Micheal and fellow New Bevver/frequent partner-in-crime Cat also voted for DEATH PROMISE, but a few of Michael's friends weren't loving the kung-fu exploitation, which concerned me. Hadrian called us all back in, and by now I wanted to see DEATH PROMISE so badly that I was gonna be a little more than annoyed if it didn't win.

In third place was SECOND SIGHT. I guess there's something to be said for Gen-X nostalgia and the fact that its five minutes included three recognizable actors. That said, it would've made for an extremely boring and anti-climactic night, so I suppose it recieved a few tallies from the casual films fans milling about but didn't get much of the hardcore geek vote.

Hadrian said Z.P.G. came in second by a mere vote. Again, it looked like a great source of unintentional comedy, but it just didn't grab me the way one of the films did. Things looked really good at this point.

And the winner...

DEATH-freakin'-PROMISE! And it was all I hoped it would be.

The hero (If you can call him that) and his afro-ed partner take a stand against a landlord who has joined in an axis of evil with several others to drive out their tenants so they can raze the buildings and sell to a developer. The axis included a stereotypical late-'70s Italian, a stereotypical late-'70s Jew and a stereotypical late-'70s African-American pimp/pusher. A little something to offend everyone.

The clothing and music were atrocious, the acting and dialogue was even worse, and the martial arts scenes were done s...o s...l...o...w...l...y that you wondered if the cast was trained at the same YMCA in Newark that taught Daniel Larusso. It did, however, have an attempt at a twist ending, so I'll give the writer props for the effort.

Just awesome!

Based on the huge turnout, Hadrian promised to do this kinda thing again. Can't wait, but DEATH PROMISE is going to be a tough, tough act to follow.

Clu Gulager Is My Homeboy

2008-09-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

As the New-Bev faithful and I filed out of the theatre following the final night of Clu Gulager's film fest, we all agreed on one thing: Four nights barely scratches the surface of this actor's monumental resume.

The second batch of Clu's films were much more serious and subdued compared to the wacky double shot of horror films that kicked things off. The night began with THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, which, as I learned that night, really needs to be seen at the cinema to fully be appreciated.

It had been many years since I had seen this early-'70s epic, and, like many films I've revisited in recent years, I found a new appreciation for it. I'd chalk to it up to maturity, but we all know that couldn't possibly be the case with me.

Although the films ends with Cloris Leachman's scathing Academy-Award winning monologue, the soul of PICTURE SHOW is found in its quieter moments. The small Texas town that contains the lives of its characters is dying a slow death in 1951. Anarene is expiring with a whimper, not a bang, while the space age is booming elsewhere. The vast plains that surround it on all sides are slowly strangling it, and most everyone who lives there have tacitly accepted it with a shrug and are meandering on.

The big screen underlines the enormity of the emptiness that's suffocating Anarene. It's not quite the end of the world, but you can see it from there. The highways that serve as the only lifeline between civilzation and this small Texas town seem to stretch forever. Drive too far and you'll fall off the edge of the planet into oblivion, as ancient sailors feared.

I was really intruiged by Clu since it was, after all, his night. I'm sure it also had something to do with the fact that he's the only actor in the film that I hang out with.

The man I know now is something of a favorite great uncle. He's your grandparent's sibling who can both spin fascinating stories about his experiences and have you rolling with a well-timed off-color remark, often in the same sentence.

But he had an air of danger and mystery about him four decades ago. In PICTURE SHOW he plays a roughneck named Abilene. (His name or a handle given to him based on his hometown?) He says little and wears a perpetual poker face that leaves you a little uneasy about what could be simmering beneath the surface. We spend two hours watching Cybill Shepherd's Jacy effortlessly bend overmatched boys to her will before she briefly gets mixed up with Abilene and immediately learns that life isn't going to be as easy as she thinks it'll be.

Afterwards, Clu dished about working for the megalomaniacal Peter Bogdanovich, who the actor both praised for his skill and slammed for his overbearing directorial style. Clu said his pool-hall scene with Shepherd, who Bogdanovich had recently begun romancing despite their age gap, caused the director a lot of grief. The scene was cut from the theatrical print, added decades later in an extended cut, and Clu made no effort in hiding his anger over Bogdanovich's mistake.

The festival wrapped with 1964's THE KILLERS, which I had never seen before but was being highly lauded by my fellow New Bevvers. Clu and Lee Marvin play a pair of hit men who have a bit of a "bad cop-worse cop" routine to their partnership. I could clearly see these characters' fingerprints all over the subplot of a film that would be made three decades later.

Marvin's performance is pretty subdued. Clu is a wildman, whose antics elicit the same nervous laughter Joe Pesci gets in GoodFellas. The pair complement each other nicely, and I can easily say this is the best made-for-TV film I've ever seen.

Clu honored several of us on the final night of his festival with thanks and shoutouts. Once again, never would I have imagined during any of my countless THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD viewings that one day Clu Gulager would be thanking me by name for being his chum. It was an honor both because of my admiration of his work as an actor and my affection for him as a person.

Seems like it wouldn't be a night at the New Bev if it didn't end with a wacky photo, and the cake fellow freaks Rob and Jen brought served as the inspiration for this installment. Naturally, Clu was game for this freakshow wedding photo.

Four nights really isn't enough. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that Clu-Fest 2: Clu's Revenge happens soon.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Silversun Pickups - Carnavas (Yes, still. They're that good and I was a little late in discovering this one.)

Send...more...paramedics

2008-09-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

What a long, strange trip it's been -- "Truckin'" The Grateful Dead

Cliche, I know, but that lyric wouldn't stop bouncing around my head last weekend as venerable actor, New Beverly Cinema fixture and, I'm quite proud to say, my friend Clu Gulager hosted four nights of his films at the Beverly. He and I had a lot of history together long before I had the pleasure of actually meeting him, which served as a 25-year set up for his film fest.

I wasn't a huge horror fan growing up, but I had to learn how to become one quickly. The other kids in the neighborhood loved horror films. To have a dissenting opinion as child is to be a social outcast, so I, too, fell in line and learned to at least not hate horror. I've always liked films that were fun or exciting. Horror films were neither.

Standards were obviously a little different in the heady days of the mid-'80s. The films that were considered extreme at the time seem pretty tame after two decades of societal decay, but even then I was put off by most of the slasher films. The only horror films I dug were a little outta left field.

A maniac with a machette didn't do it for me. Freddy Krueger was badass. I could watch stuff about aliens, monsters or alien monsters. (There's an alien monster film that even qualifies as an out-and-out masterpiece.)

But hands down my favorite sub-genre was zombie flicks.

I first saw THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD in junior high and immediately fell in love with its demented genius. (And the west-coast punk soundtrack certainly helped.) The characters were strange and far different than the cookie cutter targets who only existed to meet a gruesome demise in other flicks. The movie's full of brilliant throwaway gags, like the eye chart that reads "Burt is a slavedriver and a cheap sonofabitch..." Freddy's varsity jacket is another favorite of mine. The back reads "F**k You" in the theatrical version. On TV it reads "Television Version." Brilliant.

I saw the film often over the years and it easily became my favorite horror film. But never during any of the viewings did I imagine I'd someday be sitting with the man playing Burt and listening to his war stories about making this celluloid abomination.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The night began with a viewing and panel for FEAST. Turns out that Clu has an in with the director.

I first saw FEAST a few months ago in a red envelope viewing after a co-worker recommended it to me. I really liked it for a lot of the same reasons I've loved RETURN all these years: It's very smart, funny and self-aware without skimping on the horror. It's obvious neither film had much of a budget, but the directors of both manage to overcome that obvious constraint.

As with most films, FEAST was even better on the big screen. Judging from the big laughs in the appropriate places, many in the audience had never seen it before and, I'd imagine, walked away fans.

Resident genius Marc hosted the panel that followed, which included the Gulagers, actress (and Gulager by marriage) Diane Goldner, actor Duane Whitaker (Who's much, much cooler than the colossal pricks he plays in this film and another film you perhaps have seen) and a few crew members.

The younger Gulager dished about the challenges of making FEAST. Making a low-budget film is hard enough, he said, but making a film with everything being documented for television while two dozen producers are breathing down your neck is especially taxing. All involved described the shoot as exasperating, but added that the reshoots which were done minus the interference from Bravo and the producers, were quite fun.

The night wrapped with a screening of RETURN, which got the full panel treatment the night before but I was absent due to a slight case of work. I had never seen it at the cinema before, and one of the many reasons I love the Bev is that it allows me to see these films that served as the cornerstones of my childhood as intended. Home video is great, but there is simply no substitute for seeing a film on the big screen with an audience, especially one full of geeks who know proper (cult) movie etiquette.

It was nothing short of a thrill watching the film. Seeing it with Clu, who I've gotten to know pretty well after spending many hours standing in line with him over the past year, made it all the sweeter. It was kind of a culminating moment after a quarter-century of geeking over RETURN.

I thought it'd be a good idea to mark the occasion and continue the tradition we kicked off with Diablo Cody during her turn at the theatre's helm.

It goes without saying that Clu was more than happy to pose for a geek team photo.

A long, strange trip indeed.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Silversun Pickups - Carnavas

Rainbow Brite: Savior of the Universe!

2008-09-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

This one's taking us back a bit, but I'd be remiss if I didn't share with my adoring public an extremely rare screening of RAINBOW BRITE AND THE STAR STEALER.

Yeah, sluggo, you read that correctly.

New Bev Midnight guru Phil is indeed a strange one, and I don't think that's really a revelation to either Phil himself or anyone who has spent more than 45 seconds speaking to the guy. But the brilliance of his eccentricity is that he uses his access to the screen to unearth films that have long been decomposing on the bottom of history's waste bin.

Such was the case last month when he aired this 90-minute Hallmark ad. Sound strange that a greeting-card company would produce a film to move product? It shouldn't, considering Quaker Oats did the same thing about 40 years ago to shill candy and accidentally made one of the most brilliant films ever. And don't forget that most of us were raised on a steady diet of syndicated 30-minute toy commercials.

Actor David Mendenhall participated in the hi-jinks. I'm sure the dude enjoys a fairly anonymous existance these days despite his fairly beefy resume, but he was immediately recognizable to all of us children of the '80s who packed the Beverly that night.

He mentioned he had never seen RAINBOW BRITE on the big screen before, and warned that his sister is also did some work in the film which was a little strange considering in 1985 it was very hard to distinguish between their pre-pubescent voices. Nice guy, that David Mendenhall, and quite cool to press flesh with an actor I saw a lot of in my days as a young geek. Phil plans on screening my favorite piece of Mendenhall's work next month, so hopefully he'll roll out for that one as well.

As for the film itself, well...it is what it is. To call the animation poor would be giving it far too much credit. It was a slight step up from the old "Clutch Cargo" or Marvel Comics cartoons from the '60s that featured a small moving bit laid atop mostly static images. I can't even remember much of the story, except that a spoiled space princess wanted to add Rainbow Brite's power belt or gem or something like that to her wardrobe which was causing an extended winter and severe SAD down here on Earth.

Of course Ms. Brite prevails in time to shower the planet with sunshine and rainbows, though for the life of me I can't remember how. I fully realize I'm slagging the film, but, in fact, it was misaligned in a very entertaining way, and films like this are often an experience unto themselves. Yet another entry for the geek resume.

Besides, now when someone asks, "Have you ever seen RAINBOW BRITE & THE STAR STEALER?" I can proudly answer, "Yes sir/madam, I have!"

Could happen...

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley

Eastbound and Down...

2008-09-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Jerry Reed, co-star of one of my most beloved films and singer/songwriter of that film's iconic and insanely catchy theme song, died today at 71.

Keep it 10-10 on the side, Snowman.

Buy me stuff...NOW!

2008-09-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Some (all) of you may have thought, "Hey, Eric, I'd really like to buy you some stuff, if only I knew what you wanted and how to get it for you."

Well, "Service" is my middle name. Just click on the button below.

You're welcome.

Ultra Beatdown

2008-08-29T08:16:00.001-07:00

As I've said before, if you don't like DragonForce then you are a waste of DNA and shut up.

I've been patiently waiting like a good, little metalhead for their new album to drop and, thankfully, the standard bearers for the "extreme power metal" movement haven't let me down.

Beatdown doesn't stray far from the formula that propelled DF's breakthrough 2006 album Inhuman Rampage. The band is very unapologetic for sticking to their guns, and, in all honesty, don't have much room for growth short of changing genres.

Like most DF fanboys, I'm here for the relentless twin-guitar assault of Sam Totman and Herman Li, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of prog-rock in this 8-track shred-a-thon. Totman & Li share a bit more of the stage with keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov, whose furious work on the synthesizer offers an nice occasional breather from the band's signature six-string shock and awe campaign.

Fortunately, though, the band holds true to its word, never straying far from their winning formula and gleefully amplifying everything the we in the mullet set dig about metal down to the superepic Dungeons-and-Dragons inspired album covers, lyrics and song titles. (Allow me to be the first to nominate "Heartbreak Armageddon" as the greatest tag ever.) And, of course, the guitars still run wild and reign surpreme.

There's much to love here, and DragonForce deserves much credit for both handling their newfound albeit modest success and for giving us fanboys everything we love about the band without simply retreading "Through the Fire and Flames" a half-dozen times on the new disc.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Figure it out, genius...

No, seriously...

2008-08-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

..."Foreplay/Long Time" really is the greatest song ever. I don't know why it took me three decades to figure that out.

The greatest song ever recorded EVER...

2008-08-21T13:13:00.001-07:00

...is "Foreplay/Long Time" by Boston.

Just puttin' that out there.

For adults only...

2008-08-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

It's not really my style to put porn on my blog, but I couldn't resist this. If there are any children nearby, I'd suggest having them leave the room before you look at these next couple of photos...

...

...

...Seriously. This is pure, unfiltered smut.

...

...

...OK, perverts, feast your eyes on this.

This bit of pure sex is the 2008 Honda CB1000R. Honda is clearly shedding its traditionally conservative design cues and heading into Girls Gone Wild territory. Just look at those curves, that sci-fi inspired cyclops headlight and the single-sided swingarm. Imagining this thing with a coat of glossy black paint is enough to make a grown man sweat.

The object of my desire is only available to Euros right now, but someday she will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.

The Devil Wears Pink

2008-08-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

I've fallen way behind on writing about my misadventures, and don't really have much time to fix that today thanks to a slew of mundane tasks I have to attend to before I see ALIENS tonight and begin what's pretty much a solid week of work tomorrow. I'm slowly getting over a touch of laryngitis, so my coworkers will be thrilled to hear that I can't talk much.

Before too much time passed, I wanted to post the last few pics and memories of Mondo Diablo, which ended with "Chick Night": DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN and PRETTY IN PINK. I've always been ambivalent about SUSAN and hated PRETTY with a white-hot passion, and a repeat viewing of each has done nothing to change my opinions.

Nonetheless, I went for two reasons: to listen to '80s icon Jon Cryer's recollections of making the worst John Hughes film of the decade and to get one last picture of Diablo.

Cryer was quite cool, very funny and dished some great stories about filming PRETTY and, most importantly, why the film ended the way it did. Short version: Molly Ringwald wanted Robert Downey Jr. to play Duckie and never let anyone on set forget it. An ending was, in fact, originally filmed where Duckie and Andie wind up together, but Ringwald had it changed and reshoots were done.

When Diablo vented about her hatred of the ending before the films, Jason and I protested from the front row and reminded her that Kristy Swanson is quite an epic consolation prize. That pretty much fell on deaf ears, but we showered Kristy's cameo with passionate applause.

Diablo thanked everyone for coming, particularly the four of who occupied the front row for every one of her screenings. Inspiration struck, and I thought it'd be a great idea to sit her in the middle for a geek team photo, which required me to chase her down in the lobby after PINK wrapped and ask her to come back and sit through about five different pictures.

Fortunately, she is, in fact, the coolest chick on the planet and enthusiastically agreed to do it, calling us her MVP's. She sat and smiled as all four of us in the photo got it on our individual cameras, then stood, thanked us again and hugged us all(!).

There isn't one of us in the photo above who isn't in love with her. I even suspect pregnant, married Jen would switch teams.

Thanks again, Diablo. Here's hoping for a Mondo Diablo II someday.

Save me from myself...AGAIN

2008-08-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

With the spectre of Wendy Wu still looming, I passed a billboard on Alameda pimping an ABC Family special called SAMURAI GIRL.

In case you were thrown off by the complicated title, here's the press release: For three days beginning September 5th, ABC Family will air SAMURAI GIRL, a miniseries based on a popular young adult book series by Carrie Asai. It stars Jamie Chung as Heaven, a 19-year-old girl who discovers that her adoptive father is a yakuza boss and may have killed her brother. She leaves to train in the ways of the samurai and plot to bring down her father’s criminal empire with the help of American friends.

Since it's pretty obvious I'm unable to resist family-friendly programming about cute Asian girls who bust heads, so I might as well give in and embrace the inevitable. I'll end up TiVo'ing every freakin' episode of this mini-series.

In my defense, Samurai Girl does look really hot rockin' that katana in the advertising.

Save me from myself...

2008-08-01T18:41:00.001-07:00

This is officially a cry for help.

Today, while getting ready to get ready to leave the apartment (Makes sense if you think about it) I found myself watching something called WENDY WU: HOMECOMING WARRIOR. I'd explain the plot, but I think the title leaves precious little that needs explaining.

It was the title, in fact, that roped me in. Hell, it has the word "warrior" in it. This Wendy has got to be a kick-ass chick. Man, I love kick-ass chicks. That alone almost balanced out the fact that it airs on the Disney Channel.

I then noticed the extremely-cute-in-an-American-Eagle-billboard-kinda-way girl who plays the titular Homecoming Warrior.

I felt extremely filthy crushing on a Disney-Channel actress, but immediately did my homework and found that she's 20 years old, which downgrades the act from immoral and illegal to just inappropriate.

The real guilt lays in the fact that I had an out. I was leaving for the gym, and could very easily have turned the cable off and saved my soul from this stain it now must bare. Instead, I set the TiVo to record it, not wanting to miss a minute of the training montage that surely lay ahead. And there's nothing I love more than a training montage.

I haven't actually watched it yet, so hopefully sanity will prevail and I'll do the right thing by erasing that bewitching Wendy my video recorder and my life. I really don't need to know if she fulfills her destiny by becoming both a warrior and homecoming queen...

Or do I?

To cleanse my soul, I had to swing by Amoeba Records to pick up Dead Meadow's most recent disc and the newly released DOOMSDAY.

I need an intervention here. Help me before the sequel drops.

Eric's War Journal

2008-07-31T21:13:00.000-07:00

THE DATE: JULY 23, 2008
THE PLACE: Hollywood
THE MISSION: See "Spaced" on the big screen and hear the wacky Brits behind one of the most brilliant shows ever talk about it.
How hard can it be?

0915: After a tidy three-hours of sleep following the second-to-last installment of Diablo's run at the New Bev, which itself followed a shift that was preceeded by ninety minutes of sleep, I wake up and attempt to cover up the fact that caffeine has been a substitute for good ol' fashioned American rest these past couple weeks. I plan on getting to the ArcLight when it opens in 45 minutes to find out when and where they'll allow the geeks to queue it up. Since the show is free and first-come, first-served, hordes will arrive and many will go home without knowing the joys of "Spaced."

1000: Recon officially begins. I wait for the rabble of viewers there to see THE DARK KNIGHT to get their tickets before I ask the concierge where they plan on lining up the geeks. She looks at me quizzically before excusing herself and returning with a manager.

I apologize for wasting the manager's time and pose her the same question. She looks at me just as quizzically as the first girl I spoke to. I then point to the large digital board that dominates the ArcLight lobby with the theatre's showtimes and point to, "SPECIAL - BBC DVD THEATRE 10."

She seems to be noticing this for the first time, so I then explain to her that her theatre will be hosting a free screening for a bunch of rabid geeks that will likely start pouring into the lobby in a couple hours. Damn if she knows where they're all going to go, however, so she apologizes for her lack of help and excuses herself.

I have a bad feeling about this...

1027: With nothing to do and nowhere in particular to do it, I take refuge at Swingers for eggs, vegetarian sausage and a fat stack of banana pancakes. I check with my secretary and find a message from Jason asking what's going on with the screening. I explain the theatre is clue-deficient, but assure him not to worry that I will handle recon and score us a great place in whatever line emerges in the next couple hours.

1122: I hit Amoeba Records to score the new EP from Zack De La Rocha's new band and The Sword's second album. I also find a Dead Meadow CD cheap in the used bin. Maybe my luck's turning.

I run into New Bev Midnight regulars Jackie and Eric and explain my screwball mission to them and bring them up to speed on its less-than-stellar start. They can't lie about my chances, but I have their sympathy.

1152: As I head over to Starbucks for more caffeine and to convert my new music into ones and zeroes on my laptop, I see a couple geeks -- a goth girl and a chick with bubble-gum pink hair -- standing alongside the cooking school that's across the plaza from the theatre. Could this be the genesis of the queue?

1200: I'm still really impressed with how good that new Sbux coffee is.

1309: Hot Topic and Bubble Gum have been joined by three other girls with geekish leanings. I confirm that this is, in fact, the queue and I and my crew will be 6th in line. Now it's time to sit and wait...

...a lot...

1319: I'm finished with my first listen of One Day as a Lion and it is BADASS! Kinda reminiscent of Evil Empire, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

1327: Silent Bob's long-lost twin brother loudly rolls in from the signing in Westwood that I passed up to ensure a good place in line. He announces to all of us that we missed something epic, which I'm sure we all appreciated hearing. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or my contempt of loudmouths (I don't like the competition), but I suddenly realize that there are a lot of manhole covers through which a dumpy guy who clearly doesn't have the time for personal hygiene could be thrown.

The line starts to build momentum over the next half-hour as my face is thoroughly melted by Gods of the Earth. The Sword owns! They are the lords of all they survey!

1415: A security guard emerges from the theatre and crosses the courtyard to ask me what the line's for.

Chew on that for a moment: A theatre employee is asking me why we're lined up at said theatre.

This thing is being run with military freakin' precision. The line's now pretty beefy.

1445: Jason; his new sidekick JD, who I've been seeing around the Bev a lot, and Cat, a friend of Jason's I've never met, arrive within minutes of each other.

Jason is stoked about our place in line. I'm stoked I can now use the men's room.

1524: Jason hits the Baja Fresh across the street for provisions. I normally loathe the place, but I'm so starved that the grilled vegetarian burrito is like heroin. I stop just short of gobbling the waxy paper it's wrapped in.

1639: As Jay and JD run for coffee, a couple bouncer-esque guys roll the Batpod out of its trailer and a full-blown geek feeding frenzy ensues. People begin battling for position, as if the 750-pound bike is suddenly going to disintegrate before they can snap a picture of it.

I wait for the scent of blood to clear the water before I casually stroll up and get my cheesecake shots.

The line, by the way, has now hit critical mass as it runs the entire length of the plaza...

...winds down Sunset Blvd....

...and rounds the corner across the street from Amoeba.

With the large number of seats that I'm sure that are being saved for friends of the production, a lot of geeks are going home sad today.

1710: Phil comes over to hand out fliers that pimp his upcoming shows and stops to chat with us at the head of the line. I tell him how very, very happy I am that he's screening OVER THE TOP, and he gives me that look he usually gives me when I say something like that.

1758: "ERRRIC!" I stop to see who's shouting my name to find Nicole, another regular on the Geek Circuit, standing around with a gaggle of friends by the front door. I quickly put two and two together and realize that she's not lined up like the rest of us losers because she's being hooked up with seats. She confirms this, fueling a sudden bout of jealousy the likes of which fills my chest cavity with an intense heat.

She explains that her friend, Harmony I believe was her name, runs Simon Pegg's website.

I ask Nicole to tell Harmony I hate her.

1810: Shortly after regulars Rob and Jen join us, the line behind us begins to stir as Edgar Wright, Simon and Jessica Hynes roll in high-fiving the geeks as they pass. I can't get pics of the guys, but I snap a shot of Jess as she enthusiastically chats with a few girls who she recoginzed from the signing earlier that day.

1845: WE'RE IN!!!! The hours spent standing around doing absolutely nothing now pay off as we score the best seats in the house: Dead center in the front row of the second section. Soon the place is completely packed.

Caffeine is replaced by geek-flavored adrenaline as I realize how lucky my handful of cinephiles and I are to even be at something like this. I had the same feeling during THE MOVIE ORGY and Nicky Katt's Monday Mug Melter at the Silent Movie Theatre. I've seen some very, very cool things that many geeks would give their middle nut for this past year.

Speaking of THE MOVIE ORGY, Joe Dante rolls in. So does John Landis. Heather Graham takes a seat in the front row. Diablo shows up with Julia and a couple other faces I recognize from the New Bev.

Kevin Smith gets things started by announcing he's baked, which elicits a huge roar of approval from the crowd. Once again, I'm the straightest geek in the place. Should be used to it by now.

Smith introduces the cast who say a couple brief words then roll the episodes: "Art", "Epiphanies" and "Gone." I haven't seen the show since they aired a handful of eps on BBC America a few years ago to conicide with the release of the painfully brilliant SHAUN OF THE DEAD. the show is just as hilarious as I had remembered, and looks great on the big screen.

Kevin comes back to kick off the Q & A, and not a moment too soon since he looks as if he was about to drop any second. I guess the Industry types can afford the really good stuff.

The three are effortlessly funny, and their banter following the screening makes me long for some sort-of reunion. All three agree there is no way they could recreate the magic of the show at this point in their lives, nixing a proper "Spaced" reunion, but offer that they'd love to continue working together in some other capacity.

They say their goodbyes and retired to a private party in the bar on the ArcLight balcony. My geekdreanaline wearing off and with work looming on the horizon, I too retire.

After all, I need all the rest I could muster...

RICKY is almost here!

Running With The Devil

2008-07-21T22:38:00.001-07:00

Diablo Cody and I obviously grew up on many of the same films, as evidenced by her choices for "Horror Night" and "Comedy Night" of her festival.
Three of the films were very old friends of mine, and the team responsible for the only movie I hadn't seen out of the bunch created my favorite sketch comedy show ever.

The first horror film was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, one of only two sequels to the landmark film that introduced us to Freddy Krueger that's worth a damn.

The film is more unintentionally funny then I remember it, but it's been a couple decades since I rolled with the Dream Warriors as they tackled the "Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs." I love that last line, and director Chuck Russell and collaborator Frank Darabont (!) admitted they do as well during the Q & A that followed the film.

Another brilliant moment happened in the moments leading up to the movie's climactic battle as a series of nightmare wackiness leads to a door hovering in midair in front of the characters.

"It's a door!" Kristen exclaims as everyone in the theatre howled with laughter. That phrase has since become a battlecry for me and Jason, one of the other regulars.

The obligatory Q&A followed, and the filmmakers were clearly having a ball talking about a film most would regard as the black sheep on their resume. Not often you hear Frank Darabont, the man singly responsible for the finest film I've ever seen, talk about changing the giant Freddy-snake from pink to green because the original "looked like a giant pink cock with a face!"

I even ran up on Darabont to have him autograph a poster of THE MIST. My collection now numbers four!

The epic FRIGHT NIGHT followed, and the film has aged very well for a 23-year-old horror flick made on a modest budget. After hearing filmmaker Tom Holland express his passion for both the movie's creation and its legacy, it's clear how it turned out so well.

Holland spoke at length about the writing and the making of the film, which was born of his love of monster movies and the late-night programs that he watched them on as a child. It was this personal love of the subject, Holland said, that was the key to why the film works so well.

Ever wonder why Chris Sarandon is always eating an apple during the film? I don't anymore. Russell told us.

Diablo switched gears a couple nights later on "Funny Night," showing
WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER...

which I won't talk much about it because I really didn't like it. I'm disappointed because I like so many of the people in the film, especially the alumni from "The State." And director David Wain was very cool and funny in the Q&A.

...and MIDNIGHT MADNESS, a very dear friend from my childhood that I've watched often but hadn't seen in about 20 years. Fortunately, the film is every bit as much fun as it was then; Something I told director Michael Nankin and actors Alan "Leon, The Gamemaster" Solomon and the enigmatic and usually reclusive Eddie Deezen (!!!!) during the Q&A.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS had the distinction of being the second Disney film to recieve anything other than a G rating (THE BLACK HOLE being the first. Impress your friends with that bit of trivia), so I asked if there was any interference from the studio. Nankin said a scene where a young man is using an observatory's telescope to peer into a bedroom window drew a number of executives to the set, while Deezen said his line about scooter and how you couldn't go to a smaller version once you've had "that much power between your legs" almost had to be nixed.

Deezen's presence set off a geek feeding frenzy at the New Bev, and he seemed to be gobbling up the love we were showing him. His presence at these kind of events really is rare, but he was clearly having a great time with it which led some of us hardcores to wonder if they just don't ask him to show up at many of them.

Either way, our girl Diablo bagged him and it made the MIDNIGHT MADNESS screening one of the best of an already epic and extremely nostalgiac festival. Now, if she'd just do me a solid and gimme a dose of THE LAST DRAGON, which I'm sure she was watching on cable the same time I was.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: The Sword -- Gods of the Earth

I have come to praise Heath Ledger, not to bury him

2008-07-18T17:02:00.001-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that years in emergency medicine have made me a bit jaded and skepitcal. Shocking admission, ain't it?

So, I must admit that as I read the early reviews of THE DARK KNIGHT that raved about the late Heath Ledger's performance, I had to wonder how much of it was laced with sweetness to take some of the biterness off of his untimely demise.

With the 3:30 a.m. showing still very fresh in my mind, I can tell you that the reviewers have been doing the film and Ledger no undeserved favors with their praise. The film is one of the finest I've ever seen, even superior to the stellar first installment. I'll say nothing more than the film is practically flawless in every facet for fear of even giving away a tiny morsel of surprise.

And it being the ArcLight Hollywood, of course there was ample geek candy around the lobby to fuel this circus-like event.

And Heath Ledger truely is nothing short of amazing. His is a fearless turn that steals the film from a cache of powerfully talented actors, all of whom turn are phenomenal themselves. It's strange to consider his Joker performance a revelation considering he'd laid down a strong body of work prior to donning the purple suit, but this movie puts him on an entirely different level than even the Academy-Award level stuff he'd already done.

Equally amazing was the number of people scurrying around the ArcLight at 3:30 in the freakin' morning on a work night.

THE DARK KNIGHT was actually the second film of the night for me. Earlier, I was at the Silent Movie Theatre for SUCH HAWKS, SUCH HOUNDS, a documentary on the history of stoner rock.

The doc was very interesting as it highlighted several bands you've never heard of spanning thirty years. Most of them were struggling to get by as they support their music addictions, and aren't likely to find much commercial success with music that isn't accessible to most of the listening public. Can't imagine an Earthless CD sandwiched between Hannah Montana and Christina Aguilera at Best Buy.

But the bands stick to their guns, and find a little hope in the fact that the rules of the music game have changed in recent years, allowing them to bypass the labels and corporate control of media via the Internet. The highlight of the film was a segment on Sleep, a Bay-Area band who burned their bridges by using the label's money to lay down a 63-minute song (!) called "Dopesmoker" (Or "Jerusalem", depending on which mix you have) that set out to be the heaviest song ever recorded. Snippets are played during the film, and the track is overdubbed so many times that the base threatened to shake the paint off the walls of the Silent Theatre.

The film was followed by a performance by Earthless, who sort of have a free-form jazz sensibility. The three-piece band is loud and heavy without being angry; More Blue Oyster Cult than Slayer. They explained in the film that they just sort of go where the riffs take them, which made their tightness as a band even more impressive. It was phenomenal hearing them in such a small space as the Silent Theatre, even if my ears are still ringing from the insane volume.

Even cooler was the montage of freaky images Pimpadelic Wonderland, the house video-jockey for lack of a better title, laid down over the band as they played. I was able to recognize footage from THE BOXER'S OMEN and the epic ON ANY SUNDAY.

And, oh yeah...

RICKY's coming!

Walked through the Halls of Karma, Shook hands w/both the Devil & God

2008-07-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Look, disco just ain't my thing. If you dig it, we're cool. I'm not one to judge. But I just don't, never have and never will dig old or modern disco.

Having now sat through THE APPLE and XANADU in recent months, I'm begging programmers at my beloved rep houses to please stop showing disco musicals.

Also never been a big fan of LABYRINTH. I like Muppets. I really dig Bowie. Somehow, the two just don't add up for me, though.

That said, Diablo's still the coolest chick to ever walk the Earth.

Fortunately, she has much better stuff coming up, including a horror night that's going to feature an appearance by Frank-Freakin'-Darabont. That's gonna be too much for my silly little mind to get a hold of.

And I recently caught a peek at something on the wall of the Silent Movie Theatre that did my soul very well...

RICKY's coming!

Life imitates Nabisco snack treats

2008-07-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

Someone said this picture of me, Promise and Andy from their joint birthday bash last weekend resembles one of those limited-edition Oops Oreos; The ones with chocolate creme sandwiched between two vanilla cookies.

Heroes Of Our Time

2008-07-14T21:52:00.001-07:00

I don't mean to judge, but anyone who doesn't like DragonForce is a booger-eating moron.

The Devil Went Down to Hancock Park

2008-07-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

Did I need another reason to love the New Beverly Cinema? Clearly not, since if I spent any more time there Michael, the owner/operator of the greatest theatre on God's green Earth, would charge me rent instead of admission.

Nonetheless, they did by kicking off the latest in a line of awesome film festivals hosted by filmmakers who have shaped my spongelike mind the past couple decades. Following on the heels of Edgar Wright and Joe Dante* (Still haven't recovered from having my face melted by THE MOVIE ORGY), Diablo Cody is having a go at serving up a geek buffet.

*(Rumor has it Eli Roth had his turn, but I, like many of the New Bev maniacs who hissed at the mention of his name in the weeks preceeding it, didn't see any of it.)

Mondo Diablo got started Saturday with an all-Reitman double shot: STRIPES and THANKS FOR NOT SMOKING.

I took my seat in the front row between Hollywood legend/New-Bev-mainstay Clu Gulager and several of the other film zombies I see regularly on the L.A. Perpetual Roving Film Festival circuit as Diablo set things in motion. She mentioned growing up on STRIPES back in the dark ages of video. (VHS or Beta?)

The film has aged very well, in large part because Bill Murray's comedic genius doesn't have an expiration date. In all fairness, Murray can't be credited ALL of the laughs as the supporting cast certainly carry their weight throughout the film. (Particularly the late John Candy. "How's it going, Eisenhower?")

The first Q&A followed, as Ivan Reitman discussed making STRIPES. The director said getting the Army to sign off on allowing him to film in Fort Knox was remarkably easy. He added that recruitment spiked following the film's release, as displaced frat boys undoubtedly signed up hoping for a tour of duty filled with Sean Young and mud wrestling.

Up next was THANKS FOR NOT SMOKING; An extremely funny, engaging film I'd never seen before that owns thanks to Jason Retiman's inventive visual style; tight editing and a confident performance by Aaron Eckhart as a modern-day sophist who you'd despise if it was remotely possible not to like him.

Jason took his turn fielding questions from the crowd and discussed how hard it was to get the film made while disspelling the myth about Hollywood nepatism. He said the film was about personal freedom, to which I raised my hand and offered that I thought it also served as a celebration of villainy. Jason said he really didn't see Eckhart's big-tobacco lobbiest as a bad guy. Sure, his work leads to people committing suicide on layaway via cigarettes, but he doesn't force the cancer sticks on anyone. The bad guys, the younger Reitman (And Eckhart's character) offered, are the ones who want to deny choice to Americans, even if it's the choice to do something dangerous.

I could clearly see Jason's point, but I still can't help but think of Eckhart as a villain. Either way, it was a very good film, and strikingly different from the other very good film he made recently.

Diablo recently pimped her film festival via MySpace where she promised, and I quote, "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE COME. I'll sign your DVD. I'll sign your nutsack!"

Anyone who knows me knows I can't let a big, fat curve ball like Diablo's last promise hang over the plate without hammering it. So, following the films, I reminded Ms. Cody of her promise and had her sign my sack...

On top of being very nice, really hot and NASA-smart, Diablo is also a girl who keeps her promises. Yet another reason to love both her and the New Bev.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Flogging Molly -- Float

More Human Than Human

2008-07-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

I'd apologize for how long it's taken to add anything here, but I know there's only one of you out there who's hung up on such a thing. She's my mom, and that's because she recently joined me for a night out on the Los Angeles Perpetual Roving Film Fesitval. More on that later.

Since it has been awhile, there's a lot of ground to cover so we better keep this brief. Here's the highlights from the last several days.

I was fortunate enough to finally see CHOCOLATE the day I got back from THE WARRIORS roadie and I can officially announce to everyone that I've met my future wife.

That's her above. Her name is Thai and impossible to pronounce so I plan on calling her Zen (The name of her character in CHOCOLATE) around the house, but she's pure kick-ass in a 100-pound package and I love her, man.

I've become a huge fan of Thai martial-arts films recently, largely due to Tony Jaa's two brilliant recent releases, and CHOCOLATE is up there with the best of them. The novelty of a tiny, innocent-looking Asian girl dishing out the pain wears off quickly and the film works on its own merits. She's got crazy, crazy skills and I'm very much hoping to see more from her soon.

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My mom tipped me off to WRECKING CREW, a documentary about a group of studio musicians who were so prevalent during the '60s that they're pretty much the most recorded people on the face of the planet. As it turns out, the doc was screening at the Silent Movie Theatre, which would give me the chance to introduce my mom one of my favorite haunts as well as the vegetarian-friendly confines of Swingers on Beverly Blvd.

I fortuitously was tipped off via the CineFamily's mailing list that the WRECKING CREW sold out, but thankfully Hadrian added a second show which I quickly pounced on via the online box office. Mom and I arrived at the theatre to a packed sidewalk as the 8:30 crowd passed an already long line waiting to get in for the 10:30 show.

The vibe at the Silent Theatre is always righteous, but was amped up a bit that night by go-go dancers doing their thing to some funky late-'60s grooves with some ancient music videos playing on the backdrop.

It doesn't due justice to say that everyone's probably heard something the WRECKING CREW recorded. Their work was so prevalent that it's damn near impossible NOT to have heard their music. They were the Beach Boys in the studio. (Most importantly during the band's landmark "Pet Sounds" album. Look it up sometime to see just how many epic albums followed in its wake.) They were Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." ("Be My Baby", "Unchained Melody") They did songs so well that the bands that were supposed to have recorded them couldn't duplicate the music live. They backed Frank and Nancy Sinatra. They did commercials. They recorded TV theme songs. (That Dick-Dale esque "Hawaii Five-O" theme. Yeah, that's them.)

One member said they worked so much that they could no longer gauge their success by how many sessions they had lined up but instead had to measure themselves by how much work they turned down.

The film was directed by Wrecking Crew guitarist and mainstay Tommy Tedesco's son, who was on hand to say a little about his film. The doc is very heartfelt, so much so that it'd be easy to accuse the director of putting a little too much gloss on his father's work if he didn't have so many musical giants doing it for him. Brian Wilson in particular says his band just simply couldn't have recorded the tracks as well as the Crew did.

Tedesco is currently trying to land distribution for his film, which he says has screened very well on the festival circuit. Here's hoping this slice of music history gets out to the public because it's too good not to be shared.

I was back at the Silent Theatre a couple nights later as it kicked off a gore comedy run through the next couple months with EVIL DEAD 2. There's nothing I can say about DEAD BY DAWN that hasn't already been said a million times by geeks smarter than I am, so I'll just add that it's still as much fun as it ever was and really needs to be seen on the big screen to fully be appreciated.

I raced from the Silent Theatre to the New Beverly Cinema as Phil graced his maniacs with a patriotic installment of the New Beverly Midnights featuring the Cannon Films masterpiece DELTA FORCE.

I'm usually one to shy away from trends, but I was fully on board as Chuck Norris became a cult hero among Internet film geeks in recent years. Having now seen DELTA FORCE and INVASION U.S.A. at the New Bev during the past year, it's harder to have a better time at the movies.

There was a great turnout despite the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and the trailer reel included a brilliant NAVY SEALS preview that was worth the ticket price alone.

The New Bev beckoned again later the following week with a pair of Ridley Scott epics: The director's cut of BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN.

I'm still awed by the look and atmosphere Scott created in BLADE RUNNER, which was the first film I can remember that featured a believably dystopian future. And Rutger Hauer, one of my personal cult heroes, owns as the frightening and violent yet philosophical android Batty.

This version is known as THE FINAL CUT. I haven't seen the director's cut that preceeded it often enough to be able to tell you the differences, but I am even more firmly of the opinion that Harrison Ford's Deckard is a replicant.

ALIEN is still one of the scariest films I've ever seen and has aged amazingly well these last 30 years. The titular creature's iconic status is a testament to the film's quality. There have been many film aliens over the years, but say the word "alien" to someone and this film's vicious ball of limbs and teeth is the first to come to mind. Think about it.

The Ridley Scott night was preceded by a phenomenal ride, and I'll never complain about a day in which I get a taste for both of my true loves. I chased Damian through the Angeles National Forest and took a ton of pictures along the way. I'll shut up and let them do the talking.

We pretty much had the roads to ourselves until we came across a bunch of cows crossing the road in the Lockwood Valley.

No, seriously. Look:

You can't make stuff like this up.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Alice In Chains -- Dirt

They say Cyrus is the one & only. I think we better have a look for ourself.

2008-06-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

What kind of a person rides 400 miles to see a movie he not only owns on DVD but has seen so much that he can pretty much recite the script from memory?

Hey, I'm Eric. Have we met?

Suppose I should explain how this egregious lapse in common sense came to be. As anyone who speaks to me for more than 4 minutes knows, my favorite film is, always has been and always will be THE WARRIORS.

What was already a decades-old obsession was intensified a few weeks back when co-worker and fellow geek Johnny Oh got me the video game for my birthday.

The game is a mixed bag. While the gameplay is sunk by clumsy controls and abysmal camerawork, the writing is amazing. More than half of the game takes place before the conclave, including several bonus missions that detail how The Warriors came to be and how each member seen in the movie wound up joining the clique. You run into several of the gangs that are only seen and not heard from in the film, inlcuding pretty much every set that you see making their way to the conclave during the opening credits.

I used to watch the opening credits as a kid and wonder about those other gangs. Who were they? Where were they from? How tough were they? Are those guys really dressed like mimes? (They're actually named The Hi-Hats, but you can learn that from the trailer on the DVD issued around 2001.) The game actually answers these questions, and some even a hardcore geek like me wouldn't have thought to ask. (Like where Luther scores the badge he wears on his vest through most of the film.)

I was hooked from the moment I saw the opening screen...

...complete with Barry De Vorzon's freaky synthesizer score.

So, I've spent the last several weeks immersed in 1979 Coney Island. My source at the Nuart tells me THE WARRIORS will be running there at the end of August, but a quick peek at other screenings out of curiousity revealed that it was gonna play at San Francisco's Red Vic this weekend.

Immediately, a little voice in my head, one that sounded a little like Swan, said, "We're gonna march right through these lame f**ks' territory."

Which is Warriors-speak for, "Dude, you should go." Not only would I get to see THE WARRIORS, (A couple times) but I'd also get to spend a couple days on my bike, including a sweet ride down PCH on the way home.

After spending the last couple days trying to talk myself out of it, and failing, I threw a change of clothes and my laptop into a backpack and hit the road Saturday morning. The plan was to head out a little before 8, drop my stuff off at my motel room outside of SF, then hit the Red Vic in time for the 4 o'clock show. I could then grab a bite, see a little of SF, then catch the 7:15 show before calling it a night.

But that was going to require covering a lot of ground before mid-afternoon, something I've never had trouble with.

Being out on the road again felt great, even though it was cold and overcast until the sun finally broke through a little north of Santa Barbara. I was greeted with glorious weather for the next couple hours and traffic was light so I was making great time. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I'll tell you.

I first got a speeding ticket somewhere near the middle of nowhere. Officer Poncherello said he painted me doing north of 80. Everyone on the road was doing north of 80, and continued to do so as he wrote me the ticket, but I've already learned the hard way that the Governator's khaki stormtroopers have a mad-on for a dude on a sportbike.

Unlike most Chippies who seem to be trained in the art of dickery in the academy, the dude was very polite and thanked me for my cooperation and good attitude. It was kind of like having your apartment robbed and finding a note from the thief thanking you for buying such nice stuff.

Either way, I wasn't gonna let this inconvenience get me down. So, I pressed Northward...

...until...

..for the first time in my adult life I ran out of gas. I still don't know how it happened, since I've pushed my bike much farther than the 146 miles that showed on my trip odometer, but my Kawi sputtered and stalled before silently gliding to a stop next to a sign that helpfully told me I was a mile away from the next gas station.

The sign didn't, however, warn me that mile was uphill. I learned that one the hard way as I pushed my 400-pound unconscious bike to the Union 76.

Fortunately, though, I made it without winding up as a hood ornament on one of the Peterbilt's that was whizzing by me on the 101, and my bike fired right up with 4 gallons of unleaded on board, but my once soaring spirits now resembled the cover of Led Zeppelin's debut album.

What was gonna snap my sudden losing streak?

What could I turn to?

What would save me in my darkest hour?

That's right...

Seven-grain almond granola pancakes. All was right in the world again.

But, after spending so much time on the shoulder of the 101, I was a little behind schedule. Fortunately, I was able to zip through San Jose's urban sprawl, lighten my load at the Motel 6 and navigated San Francisco's hellacious traffic just in time to see that real live bunch from Coney climb aboard the subway that would take them to the Bronx and change their lives forever.

The Red Vic is a cool little rep house, very similar to my beloved New Beverly Cinema in spirit and vibe. A very cool setup and one of the few things I miss about living in San Francisco.

As strange as it may sound to pretty much everyone reading this now, I will never get tired of seeing THE WARRIORS on the big screen as God intended. The house was about half full, but one of the fans in attendance was a Ventura-County paramedic I knew from my ER gig at Community Memorial Hospital of Ventura. Small world, huh?

After watching the boys and Mercy walk off into the sunrise, I wandered around the Haight a bit. I was pleasantly surprised to find San Fran really is very bike-friendly...

...and I was reaccquainted with Escape From New York, a small chain of pizza joints in the City that would qualify as the only other thing I miss about living in San Francisco.

No, seriously. The best pizza I've ever had. Ever.

I also stumbled across the San Fran Amoeba Records...

...which can't possibly stack up to the Hollywood location. After all, does the SF store sponsor a midnight movie series?

I stepped back into the Red Vic for the 7:15 showing, as planned, and was pleasantly surprised to watch the place completely fill up before the house lights dimmed. Good to see THE WARRIORS fans stepping up to support the rep house.

Before anyone calls for the psych eval, lemme stress that the journey is just as important as the destination on this mini-roadie of mine. After all, I wouldn't have driven to SF to see THE WARRIORS. The Red Vic screenings just gave me a purpose and a destination, i.e. an excuse to spend a couple days on my bike. Combining my two passions -- riding (Especially along the Coastline) and cinema (Especially THE WARRIORS) -- makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Nah, you're right. I need help. But after I get reaccquainted with PCH.

Where it all went so horribly average...

2008-06-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

With age comes perspective. As I look back upon my days as a geek, I'm now able to identify the three key gateway drugs that set me on this course:

1. "Battle of the Planets": Somewhere around 1980, my mom sat me down in front of the television while the American bastard child of one of this groundbreaking anime was playing on afternoon television. My young, spongelike brain got its first taste of constumed heroes/villains, animation, sci-fi AND martial arts, so this was a real tough mother for a first step. (Kinda like skipping booze and pot and jumping feet first into smack.)

2. THE WARRIORS: Also around 1980, my father did his part by planting me on the couch as he watched this on the ABC movie of the week. I very clearly remember the quick hits of dialogue about Cyrus and the conclave during the opening credits; the conclave itself; the DJ who serves as the film's Greek chorus; The Baseball Furies; the rumble in the Union Station men's room against The Punks and their rollerskating, overalls-clad leader; and, of course, "Come out to play-ay-ayyyy..."

The Furies -- a nightmarish KISS/The New York Yankees hybrid -- particularly left an impression on me.

It's been my favorite film my whole life. More on this soon. Really soon. Like, tomorrow, soon...

3. "Night Flight": This one I discovered on my own. A little before MTV; decades before YouTube and lightyears ahead of everything that was on TV and radio at the time, this semi-weekly collection of music videos, documentaries, strange films and animation introduced me to too many things to mention here and clearly helped shaped my taste in all-things pop culture.

So, imagine my surprise when I caught wind of NIGHT FLIGHT: BORN AGAIN, a two-hour restrospective of one of my childhood's key ingredients that would air in Westwood as part of the L.A. Film Festival.

The film itself was more a hodgepodge than a best-of reel. I'm sure copyright laws dictated much of what was shown. But it nonetheless features a slew of great old interviews (Highlight: A young, short-haired Ozzy Osbourne talking about his dual-nature as citizen and performer as well as warning about the dangers of drug use); videos; cartoons; film clips and New Wave Theatre.

The latter was of particular importance. As a child, I hated commercial music and really wasn't given much alternative except for my parents collection of '70s vinyl. New Wave Theatre highlighted the L.A. post-punk scene of the early '80s, and introduced me to several bands I love to this day: X, Dead Kennedys, The Cramps, The Gun Club, the list goes on...

It's hard to remember the dark, pre-Internet days of the '80s, but "Night Flight" served as an alternative to commercial schlock back when such alternatives were very hard to come by. Their influence reached far beyond their sizable audience of insomnicas and kids hungry for something different. MTV was clearly paying attention, as they followed suit by launching shows to try to entice the "Night Flight" audience. ("Headbangers Ball," "Yo! MTV Raps", and the epic "120 Minutes")

The creators spoke about the show's original run as well as their desire to resurrect it. The velvet-voiced Pat Prescott was on-hand as well. Although you never saw her, she was a key component to "Night Flight." Since the show had no studio host to identify with, her voice and the logo flying over the computer-generated nighttime landscape were the glue that held each week's ecclectic collection together.

Meeting her was a particular thrill, made even more thrilling by the fact that she couldn't have been sweeter. I'm not much for autographs; In fact, my collection has been holding steady at one for a couple years now. (MotoGP documentarian Mark Neale on a FASTER poster, in case you were wondering.) But I couldn't resist getting Pat Prescott's scribble on my freebie NIGHT FLIGHT: BORN AGAIN poster.

Regardless of whether "Night Flight" takes off again or not, and I have mixed feelings on whether there's a place for it in the year 2k8, it will always be a cherished part of my youth: The first place I heard "Los Angeles", the first place I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and one of the key reasons I haven't become a more productive human being.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Dead Kennedys -- Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

I am I am I said I'm not myself but I'm not dead and I'm not for sale

2008-06-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

Stone Temple Pilots tore up the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday night, and I still haven't fully recovered from having my face rocked.

Scott Weiland was in fine voice, the band was razor sharp and, most importantly, they very clearly enjoyed playing. Scott even commented on how thrilled he was to be able to play the Bowl.

They opened with "Big Empty" (Dean DeLeo is amazing on the slide guitar) and "Wicked Garden", played almost all of Core and their greatest (The Beatles-esque "Lady Picture Show" was particularly righteous live) before finishing with "Dead and Bloated" and "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" (Maybe my single favorite song) as the encore.

STP has always been one of my favorite bands, and certainly one of the most important of the American alternative movement. But I now appreciate them on a whole other level, particularly their ability to switch gears effortlessly between the heavy tracks on Core; their haunting, bluesy melodies; and the '70s classic-rock influenced work toward the end of their original run. Scott is clearly a fragile human being; His very public meltdowns seem to happen in annual intervals. Here's hoping he keeps it together long enough for the anticipated fifth studio album and another tour because I would love to see 'em again.

The previous weekend, I was treated to one of the greatest weekends of my movie-going life. It was a reunion with a couple of old, dear friends and a very, very strange visit with a hermaphroditic mass-murdering villain who moonlights as a lounge singer that you may recognize from one of the biggest bands of the past 35 years.

The Aero Theatre continued its unbe-freakin'-lievable summer run with a pair of films from Savage Steve Holland, whos body of work is small but above reproach.

The iconic BETTER OFF DEAD... kicked things off, and the manic speedball of cinematic weirdness is just as hilarious as it was nearly a quarter-century ago. What I appreciated this time around, however, was its sweeter side. BOD has just enough sweetness to keep the wackiness from spiraling out of control, as seemingly every film does that tries to match its zaniness over the last 25 years.

It's sweeter side? Wow. I'm turning into such a wuss.

The double bill was broken up by the best Q & A I've had the privledge of attending. Holland himself is a ball of manic energy, but in a very engaging, amusing way. His presence isn't grating and overbearing like some other mega-intense filmmakers I can think of.

Holland brought with him frequent collaborator Curtis Armstrong and BOD actress Diane Franklin, who also appeared in a couple other Doom-Generation standards and is still freakin' adoreable.

All three had very fond memories of working on BOD. The actors said Holland is fun to work for and encourages ideas and improvisation, and Holland returned the praise by crediting Armstrong for creating several of his character Charles De Mar's stand-out moments.

The theatre was packed with thirty-somethings who grew up on Holland's work, but one superfan stole the show by bringing a box of BOD-related items to be signed including the air cleaner off his Camaro, a two-dollar bill and some very rare movie items.

ONE CRAZY SUMMER, which isn't the classic BOD is but is still a very good comedy with a few sidesplitting moments. ("Lemme tell you a story about a little fat boy...")

Although I'm normally very allergic to having my picture taken, I got caught up in the zeitgeist and had such a good time watching these two staples of my childhood and listening to the insanely likeable Holland that I mugged for a pic with him.

Saturday at midnight brought Phil's regular New Beverly Midnight, and this one was a monster.

I'd describe NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE to all of you but you'd swear I was making it up. Y'see, in the heady days of '86, Uncle Jesse from "Full House" starred in an action film with one of Prince's hoochies and Double-Oh Seven to battle Gene Simmons, who led a pack of leather-and-chains-clad leftovers from one of the '80s countless ROAD WARRIOR rip-offs and Freddy Krueger in an attempt to exort the government by threatening to poison the water supply.

Oh yeah, and Simmons was a hermaphrodite who had a lounge act, nearly made out with Stamos in a couple scenes and killed people with a razor-sharp spike on the end of his right middle finger.

See, told you...

Needless to say, it was AWESOME! I laughed long and hard, as did a very packed New Bev. Chicks dig Stamos, I guess.

It's worth mentioning that the crowd was particularly hot for a THE LAST DRAGON trailer that preceded the film and I'm now making it my life's mission to merciless harrass Phil until he shows it just to shut me up.

Call me Snake...

2008-06-20T17:50:00.001-07:00

The movies came fast and furious last week before a slight case of work interrupted all me fun and games. I saw some movies I love, one I found a renewed appreciation for, and a couple I hope to NEVER FREAKIN' SEE AGAIN.

The weekend brought a couple nights with John Carpenter, a filmmaker of amazing ability who had a phenomenal run of 15 years in the '70s and '80s before settling into mediocrity the last couple decades.

Nonetheless, the Aero Theatre was showing the finest Carpenter had to offer, starting with a double feature of THE THING and THE FOG.

To call THE THING the greatest horror movie ever doesn't do it justice. Pigeonholing the film into a genre that mostly sucks is an accomplishment akin to being the tallest United States President. THE THING is one of the finest films ever. End of story.

Everyone, from Carpenter to the cast to FX-master Rob Bottin brings their A-game. The film has aged beautifully; An early card giving the setting in 1982 makes the film feel like a modern period piece rather than a 20-year-old relic. The horror is exacerbated by a psychological element as everyone is left guessing who has been contaminated by their extraterrestrial tormentor. Carpenter gives you more red herrings than clues, showing confidence in his story by not playing for the big, cheap scares and holding his cards close to the vest until the very end.
In short, THE THING is just about perfect.

The man himself was there during the intermission to talk about THE THING and his disappointment that the film bombed during the summer of E.T. and took so long to find its now immense audience. For the record, Carpenter knew all along that it's a great film.

I hadn't seen THE FOG in quite awhile and was surprised to find it was a lot better than I remembered it being. Carpenter creates a creepy feeling that overcomes the films obvious budgetary restraints. The cat conjures up scares literally using nothing more than a couple fog machines, a few large hooks a yards of gauze. You know a films freaky when it takes place in a coastal town yet sucks the air out of a lancdlocked theater.

Not to mention it has Tom Atkins, and, as well all know, anything with Atkins will thrill you.

The next night brought an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK/ESCAPE FROM L.A. double bill. I'll just get it out of the way and say that ESCAPE FROM L.A. seriously disappointed me 12 years ago and nothing has changed since.

Carpenter explained during the intermission that the film was something of a favor to Kurt Russell, who was itching to play Snake Plissken again. He had trouble writing the film, described the shoot as difficult and, based on a few comments Carpenter made on both nights, I get the impression his love of filmmaking had died long before he signed on to this project.

But why dwell on the negatives when you get a chance to see the still amazing ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK on the big screen? The original print we saw was held together only by the grace of God, but fortunately
He wanted us to see all of this highly influentiial masterpiece so the reels made it for just one more show.

Like THE FOG, it's clear Carpenter didn't have much money to work with and, like THE FOG, the film rocks anyhow. No one was a better early '80s badass than Russell. THE THING's MacReady and Plissken (At least from the first ESCAPE) deserve enshrinement in the movie-hero Hall of Fame.

I'm also willing to call Plissken the modern era's first true anti-hero. Sure, Boba Fett beat him to the theatres by a year, but Plissken holds it down in every frame of the film, while Fett does nothing but take an already-frozen-in-carbonite Han Solo to his pimp Jabba, get punked by Luke Skywalker and then devoured by the Sarlacc.

Sorry, Star Wars fanboy, but these are the facts and they are indisputable.

Each night of the Carpenter double shot was followed by a midnight movie, THE APPLE and an very weird Italian zombie film respectively. I'd discuss these two pieces of eye terrorism (to borrow a phrase from Cinefamily's Hadrian), but it'll only delay the healing process.

Actually, it is worth noting that apparently I saw an extremely rare print of THE APPLE, so rare that it likely has never been screened for the public. There were subtle changes along the way including the full version of a song called "Child of Love" that is matched only by It's A Small World in its ability to both infect and annoy to the point of suicide. Didn't mean much to me, but it adds to my heavy rep as a film geek and oughta mean something to the world's hardcore APPLE fans. (All three of you.)

The greatest man (men) I (we) ever knew

2008-06-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

My grandfather was the greatest man I've ever known. A testimony to my grandfather's quality is the fact that so many other people would say the same thing about him.

He lived a long, full life, and I always got the impression that he was happy. He loved his family, he seemed to be friends with everyone in a 30-mile radius of him, and his days were full of travel and experiences that many won't have for themselves.

Despite this, up until the day he passed he spoke of nothing as much as his experiences in World War II. His years spent on a destroyer in the Pacific were the ones that left the most lasting impression, and not in any traumatic fashion. As aa younger person, I never quite understood how things done out in the middle of the ocean 40 or 50 years ago could still be so interesting.

I saw SAVING PRIVATE RYAN the other night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I've seen the film more times than I can count, but it was the first time I'd revisited it in a while. As I saw it with a little more persepctive brought on by age, I was amazed at how much it reminded me of my grandfather.

RYAN is the best war film ever made because it is the most human war film ever made. The battle sequences that bookend the film aren't exhilarating, they're terrifying. The soldiers who are shredded by German machine guns on D-Day aren't the paper targets that pop up in a more traditional "action film." They represent the very real Americans who not only were asked but volunteered to do the same thing 65 years ago.

By the time the men from the 2nd Ranger Batallion find Ryan in Ramelle, two of their own have died, and I desperately want the remaining to standfast and make it home. The battle over the bridge Ryan declines his ticket home in order to defend would qualify as one of the most exciting sequences in cinematic history if I didn't cringe every time another of Capt. John Miller's succumbs to the German onslaught.

My blood used to boil during the Ramelle sequence when the cowardly Upham allows a couple of his mates to die because he's paralyzed with fear. Monday, however, was the first time I felt sympathy toward him. He's scrawny and meek; A scholar, not a warrior. He simply isn't built for combat the way the elite Rangers he's trailing through occupied territory are.

Despite his shortcomings, he volunteered for duty nonetheless. His greatest asset is his brains, so he served by drawing maps and translating in both German and French. Putting a man like him in combat is a mistake, as his inaction in battle proves, but he wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. He was thrust into a situation he isn't equipped to handle, but it's a situation he found himself in only because he didn't allow his cowardice to keep him from contributing to the war effort. And although he doesn't pay with his life as most of the other Rangers do, he pays the cost of war with his humanity as he holds "Steamboat Willie" and a cache of surrendering Germans at gunpoint.

The press told tales of RYAN's cathartic nature for WWII vets, particularly those who were at Normandy, when the film was new. The men who couldn't or didn't want to speak of their experiences in the decades that had passed found someone who eloquently told their story and gave the rest of us a sense of what it was like to be there.

I imagine they embraced the film because it served as a reminder that these extraordinary things really were done by ordinary men, as trite as that sounds, and they were done simply because it was the right thing to do. In an era where our government has perverted the truth to serve their own desires by creating the perception of danger and whipping up a war out of thin air, it may be easy to forget that these men fought because the world truly was in danger from an evil force and an entire race of people was horrifyingly being driven to exintction. I've yet to see how the thousands of American and Iraqi lives that Chaney's war has claimed has made my life any better or safer, but the fact that I can work, play and worship the way I do or the mere presence of any of my Jewish friends is a reminder of what was gained during World War II.

My grandfather was one of the men who just did what was right, and I imagine most people around 30 have people like him in their family. The fact that men like them and countless others were able to do their duty in the face of the horrors RYAN illustrates, and then come home to be fine men of industry, husbands, fathers and grandtathers is yet another testament to their and my grandfather's greatness.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast

Working Out...Reaching High...Dreaming Big!

2008-06-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one sees a film that's so powerful, so moving that it transends the cinematic experience. The movie shakes your very existance, changing long-standing beliefs and sending you home knowing that you've forever been changed by a filmmakers' masgnus opus.

None of the films I saw this past weekend even come close to this. But damn if I didn't have a great time.

The Silent Movie Theatre kicked things off Friday with the first double feature in their High School Hell series. One of the many very cool things Hadrian, the ringleader of this cinematic circus, does is run several concurrent series at a time, each occupying a different slot in the weekly lineup. Foe example, each Friday matinee this month is showing psychadelic Italian filnms, while the late-night Friday fare features strange films set in high school.

CLASS OF 1984 was up first, and I vaugely remembered seeing this film on cable as a kid when, I realize in hindsight, that I was far too young to realize what a craptacular movie this is. A pre-credit card warns us that although high-school violence is on the riseat an alarming rate, there aren't any schools like the film's setting, Chicago's Lincoln High School...

...

...wait for it...

...

...YET!

One of the guys from the '80s detective show Riptide, which I only remember because my dad used to watch it and it featured a pink helicopter, is a music teacher who transfers into an inner city high school where the kids are pretty much free to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year dealing drugs, running prostitution rackets and shaking down the large heard of dorks that roam the hallways like African antelope waiting to be fed upon by hungry lions.

Micheal J. Fox proves that you do indeed gotta start somewhere by playing one of the band geeks who is terrorized by the ruthless Steadman and his gang of punks, who seem to occupy the alpha dog slot in the school's heirarchy of organized crime. Roddy McDowall has the film's best scene when he realizes his dream of helping his worthles students the value of education. Since traditional methods haven't worked, Roddy snaps, holds Biology class at gunpoint and promises consequences far worse than summer school for each wrong answer they give.

He inadvertantly snags the movie's second biggest laugh when he attempts vehiclular homicide only to run into another car at 30 mph, which somehow launches his car, rolls it onto its roof and then causes it to explode. Guess dude was carrying a trunk fulla C-4 or something.

The movie would've worked as a laughable guilty pleasure save for an unpleasant scene at the end where Steadman and his gang strike out at Professor Riptide by breaking into his home and kidnapping his pregnant wife...Who just happens to be home alone with the windows open despite the fact that Steadman had recently done a drive-by on their home with a paint gun so everyone involved knows the bad guys have the Riptides' home address. But I digress...

Rape is only implied, and the scene is very long, but the unpleasantness is still a little too real for a ridiculous, laughable film like this. The mood was killed, just as the film was reaching its epic conclusion as Riptide snuffs Steadman's gang one by one in the wood shop, auto shop, the gym and the roof of the auditorium where the band geeks, who've been raised up from nothing by Professor Riptide, are giving their year-end recital with a chance to impress school board officials and possibly get invited to the state competition. Think it's concidence that Riptide and Steadman are settling their differences right next to a skylight directly above the stage the band is playing on? Riiiight.

CLASS OF 1984's "sequel", CLASS OF 1999, followed and was much more enjoyable. Director Mark Lester, who not only brought us CLASS OF 1984 but also the Governator's homo-erotic masterpiece COMMANDO, learned from his mistakes on the first CLASS OF film and went freakin' nuts on its followup.

In a future so wrought with school violence that the police have given up and sequestered the areas around schools, turing them into lawless "Free Fire Zones" that resemble sets left over from The Road Warrior, a school in Seattle have resorted to robotic teachers who have been converted from their original military application to lay down the law in the classroom.

Believe it or not, it's even more ridiculous than it sounds, and it was brilliant!

A bleached-platinum-blonde, ice-blue contact-lens wearing Stacy Keach is the mastermind behind the school's new disciplinary policy. Not content to phone it in, ponder where his career went wrong and spend his per diem on mini-bar booze, Keach goes ballistic with his role and sets the tone for the film. The biggest laughs come from Keach's non-speaking additions, like the way he holds a banana during a stand-off with Malcom McDowell, who plays the school's hapless principal, and how he chugs a glass of milk in a fancy restaurant.

McDowell, on the other hand, definitely phones it in and quite visibly wonders where his career went wrong as the school's hapless principal. Fortunately, he meets his end midway through CLASS OF 1999 so he can't serve as a buzzkill during the film's epic conclusion.

The delinquents finally strike back against their robotic oppressors, who try to restore order via weapons concealed under their human-looking facades. As we all know, the only thing better than a character with a weapon in place of a limb are three freakin' characters with limbs in place of limbs!

Pam Grier + flamethrower arm = GENIUS!

Saturday night at The New Beverly Cinema brought the semi-regular midnight movie. This week was a double-dose of awesome, as midnight-movie guru Phil celebrated his 30th birthday with a free showing of the '80s aerobics epic HEAVENLY BODIES.

HEAVENLY BODIES was a special film for several reasons. For starters, a scene very early in the film shows plucky aerobics black-belt Sam(antha) drumming up business for her new aerobics studio near a poster of FLASHDANCE.

Now, quickee, exploitation rip-offs of hugely successful films were nothing special in the '80s. In fact, Cannon Films made a fortune and kept my VCR busy as a child with a massive library of such movies. But if memory serves me correctly, HEAVENLY BODIES may be the first to openly acknowledge the film it's ripping off by featuring a poster of its source in the first five minutes. It also means they wrote, produced, and cast the film quickly enough to start filming while the movie they ripped off was still in the theaters. Such an impressive feat becomes obvious once HEAVENLY BODIES starts to roll and you realize they cut corners on trivial things like plot and dialogue.

Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying the plot and dialogue are lame, I'm saying they're non-freakin'-existant. The painfully cute Cynthia Dale easily spends 90% of the films' running time leading tightly choreographed aerobics routines and expressing her emotions by spontaneously breaking out into dance.

When the big gym across town tries to crush Sam's aerobics studio, she suggests they settle their differences in the time-honored tradition of team aerobics.

Yeah, seriously.

HEAVENLY BODIES is perfect midnight-movie fodder, and one of the better times I had at the New Beverly Midnights, which is really saying something. The crowd was hot (Despite several drunk chicks sitting to the far left who may have been the unfunniest people I've ever heard open their traps), and the atmosphere was intensified by Phil's request that people show up in legwarmers and spandex. Nice.

High culture? No, definitely not. But the weekend did feature a couple epic guilty pleasures, and HEAVENLY BODIES will be a hard midnight film to top.

Wait, did I just read that NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE is playing at the Bev in a couple weeks? Kids, we may have a new number one...

Broken-Hearted-Hoover-Fixer-Sucker Guy

2008-06-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

In news unrelated to absolutely anything of relevance, I've done a recent 180 on my lifelong hatred of Starbucks and am pretty much willing to declare it the greatest thing ever. They now finally brew a decent cup of coffee (Pikes Place Roast, which is their only that doesn't taste like it was dunked in Liquid Plum-R), they make really good sandwiches and they now have free wi-fi, which will give me something to do while I'm waiting for the show to start at The New Bev.

Speaking of the Bev, some last-minute booking shenanigans led to an impromptu double bill of ONCE and WAITRESS, two acclaimed indy films from last year that I got to see on the big screen rather than via red envelope.

WAITRESS started out well enough, albeit a little sugary for my taste, but wore out its welcome very, very quickly. The seemingly bottomless well of quirkiness that the characters drew from got downright annoying and writer/director/actress Adrienne Shelly's apparent disdain for men surfaced in a collection of one-dimentional male characters who range from lame to flat-out irrirtating. Earl, the insecure, unstable, abusive husband of the title character, got to be so painfully unpleasant that I considered leaving the theater before the credits rolled.

Pretty much every character in the film winds up cheating on their spouses at some point. The women cheat because their husbands are so terrible, so Shelly gives them a pass. The men cheat because...well, they're guys and apparently that's what we do even when we're married to sweet, attractive women.

I'm sorry the tragic cloud of Shelly's murder looms over this film, but my sorrow over what happened to this poor woman doesn't change the fact that sitting through WAITRESS was one of the most grueling experiences I've had at the cinema.

ONCE, one the other hand, may be the best romantic film I've ever seen, which isn't saying much considering the vast number of romantic films I haven't seen. But now that I've seen (And loved) both this and JUNO, maybe I'm just doing what Ajax accuses the rest of the boys from Coney of doing when they wouldn't let him chase tail.

I loved the characters, a nameless young man and woman who meet on the streets and are brought together by their love of music and what feels like destiny. Yes, I completely realize how utterly lame and cliche that sounds, and all who know me know how much I freakin' hate lame and cliche. But the characters, their lives, the emotions all feel very real.

They have baggage, they type that real people accumulate through love's inherent imperfection and not the "We need something implausable to drive the story" variety that usually gunks up most of the crappy love stories Hollywood cranks out. The film's authentic aura is actually helped by ONCE's low-budget trappings. The lack of Hollywood gloss make you feel like you're really glancing in on a couple weeks in the lives of the main characters.

I loved The Guy and The Girl (As they're listed in the credits) probably because they don't ask to be loved. They don't speak in movie "Ain't I charming?" speak. They don't even speak in the type of "Ain't I charming?" speak we in the real world tend to fall back on when we're trying to get over with a romantic interest. He's just a guy I liked from the get-go. She's sweet but tough, adoreable but fierce. A girl who's suffered enough disappointment to be hardened but not embittered by it.

I'm going to tread lightly here because I don't want to ruin anything for those who haven't seen it, but I've been thinking about the ending since the moment the screen went black. Roger Ebert said it makes sense if you really think about it. Well, Rog, I've been thinking about it for days now, and I still only think I kinda get it.

In one of the key scenes, Guy learns Girl is married to man she and her daughter left behind in the Czech Republic. He asks if she loves him, and she replies in Czech even though she's fluent in English. I cheated and went searching for the translation of her answer, and she said pretty much what I and anyone who sees the movie figured that she said. Her motives for answering him in a not-really kinda way along with the answer itself probably explain the ending...I think.

I'd be interested in hearing what anyone else thinks about the ending. (i.e. Someone smarter please freakin' explain it to me.)

CURRENTLY LISTENING: The Raconteurs -- Consolers of the Lonely (Jack White is the new savior of the universe.)

Pleased To Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name

2008-06-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

True to my word, I've gone on a full-blown, depression-and-angst fueled, no-coming back movie bender the past several days that has even left me wondering if someone can actually be addicted to cinema. But, it did keep me from cutting myself or writing lame poetry like those mascara-wearing kids who I always see through the windows of the Dennys near my flat.
I would've been bouncing off the walls had I stayed home the night I got back from my road trip, so I went inside just long enough to drop my duffel bag off then headed back out to the New Bev for the last night of their anniversary program, which celebrated the theater's 30th birthday by recreating its original lineup from May '78.

The Bev is pretty much my favorite place on God's green Earth, short of The Turks & Caicos Islands. I've been there so much the past year that I've gotten to know the owner, his co-programmers, the concession-stand operators and most of the other die-hard patrons. I even have a regular parking space: On the sidewalk next to one of the coming attractions posters.

Wednesday night brought a double bill of BEDAZZLED and THE RULING CLASS. I was a little lukewarm on THE RULING CLASS, which started well and featured an amazing performance by Peter O'Toole but meandered toward the end and wore out its welcome with the the extraordinarily dark turn it takes in the third act.
BEDAZZLED, though, was a revelation; So good that it immediately erased all memories of the crappy recent remake.
Dudley Moore is quite brilliant as he plays what amounts to several different characters, switching gears in every misguided wish the Devil grants him. And Raquel Welch in the late '60s may have been the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
But what I enjoyed most was Peter Cook, who I wasn't familiar with prior to seeing BEDAZZLED. He portrays Lucifer more as a prankster than outright Prince of Darkness, but it was his motivations that were most interesting. His havoc wreaking activities aren't born of deep-seeded evil, but rather the role he's forced to play since God needs a foil and another option so those who choose to follow him do so out of faith. Nothing personal, Earth, it's just his job.
The soul-stealing is his ticket back into Heaven; Nab one billion, Lucifer says, and God will allow him back into Heaven where he'll do things right this time and not get the boot from the Lord.
The cinebender continued the next night at The Silent Movie Theater, a venue I only recently discovered but am falling in love with more and more with each screening there.

I was first there a couple weeks ago when the venue hosted Nicky Katt's birthday party, which lasted until 5 in the morning and featured a strange assortment of films, ranging from JOHNNY HANDSOME to SONG OF THE SOUTH(!)
My favorite features are the rows of couches up in front...

...and the patio out back...

...where they fire up the grill (BYOHD) and have buckets full of beer on special occasions like Nicky's Mug Melter birthday bash and, as it turns out, last Thursday's screening of HOOTENANY HOOT.

This little exploitation quickee that apparently was trying to take advantage of a short-lived folk music blip on the pop-culture radar in the early '60s that I'm guessing four Liverpudlians promptly took a sledgehammer to. More on those guys later...
HOOTENANY was far from good, yet amusing, but only memorable for two reasons:
A. A performance by Johnny Cash, who is on-screen for about four minutes. I'd be amazed if The Man In Black spent more than three hours on set.
B. A pair of performances by Judy Henske, a woman who flat out wails. You'd never guess such a booming voice would come from this gawky brunette when you first see her, but she absolutely steals the film, even running circles around Mr. Cash.
Friday night was devoted to the third of my unholy trio of obsessions, Guitar Hero, briefly interrupted by a red-envelope viewing of IN THE NAME OF THE KING; A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE which isn't even worth mentioning except to say it's sad to see what's become of The Bandit 30 years on.
I was back to it Saturday night at the Silent Theatre for a very interesting double bill from the beginning and end of the '60s.
WHAT'S HAPPENING! THE BEATLES IN THE U.S.A. was an interesting look at the Beatles as they blew through New York City and D.C. like a force of nature to film their landmark performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was amazed by how nonchalant the very young Beatles were as they were completely transforming the rock-and-roll landscape, and I imagine they had to know that's exactly what they were doing considering the size of the crowds that mobbed them at every stop.
I was also very interested in getting a glimpse at their personalities. Paul seemed kinda quiet and cerebral, yet very much comfortable as the front man. George and Ringo were the joksters, especially Ringo who seemed to have an endless supply of energy and was having the most fun with his newfound supermegastardom. John was the quiet one, often caught sitting off by himself while the others were cutting up for their entourage.
The decade that the Beatles kicked off with such sunny optimism came crashing to a halt in GIMME SHELTER, which was a brilliant and chilling look at the doomed Altamont Free Concert of '69.
Much of the footage very capably and powerfully speaks for itself, but what I found interesting were the shots of Mick Jagger watching the footage, frame-by-frame, of Meredith Hunter drawing his gun on a Hell's Angel and the biker parrying the pistol away before drawing a knife and wildly stabbing Hunter in the neck; The first in a barrage of injuries inflicted by the Angles that would kill the 18-year-old and, ultimately, the '60s.
Jagger is speechless, which left me wondering what was running through his head. His legacy, which would forever be linked with this kid's murder? His career, which might have been on the ropes following a colossal disaster that had his band's fingerprints all over it? Sadness? Obviously, since only the most calous among us can watch murder in slow motion and not feel for the victim. But was it a combination of sadness and disappointment that an evening of free music from some of the biggest bands on Earth that was supposed to be the world's largest party went so horribly wrong?
I love documentaries, especially those that chroncle the history of rock and roll. It's kind of trivial to label a film the chronicles the end of such an important decade in this country's history as a music doc, but music seemed so much more important back then. Those old enough to remember tell me these angry, disenfranchised days we live in now don't compare to those angry, disenfranchised days becuase we don't have the spectre of the draft looming over our heads. The draft fueled this country's very public, very vocal discontent in those days, and the music, much of which feels relevant again, echoed the sentiment.
(Will there be a FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH that people will listen to when discussing what went so horribly wrong in Iraq?)
With GIMME SHELTER still resonating in my mind, I rolled to the Bev to close my personal triple feature with ZARDOZ.

I'd tell you about it if I had the slightest freakin' idea what assaulted my brain that night. ZARDOZ is a drive-by on your brain, a menagerie of strange images that don't even come close to add up to a film no matter how much you try to find the metaphors.
But, the place was packed, the crowd was hot and the film is indeed an experience, so it was, as the Saturday midnights always are, a phenomenal time.
I mean, how many opportunities do you get to see Sean Connery in a wedding dress?
(Answer: Not many, thank God.)

CURRENTLY LISTENING: Stone Temple Pilots - Core

Road Trip '08 Ch. 4: To Live and Die In L.A.

2008-05-28T17:11:00.001-07:00

I'm home, and trying to fight the overwhelming feeling of depression that fell on me like the fabled farmhouse in the tornado somewhere around Lompoc.
Same thing happened last year. It's hard to switch gears so suddenly after several days of fun and freedom. After seeing everything that I was blessed enough to be given a look at since Sunday, it's hard to deal with the dreary man-made madness of L.A. The air smells, everything looks dirty and everyone south of
has been seriously crowding me. (Much respeck to anyone who gets that reference even after clicking the link.
I'm trying to dwell on the positives. Instead of moping about my road trip being over, I'm trying to savor the memories from the last few days and reflect on how truly blessed we were with this opportunity. At a time when people are still trying to dig the corpses of people who were important to them out of the rubble of an earthquake of Old-Testament proportions, I shouldn't take for granted the fact that I just spent 80 hours playing throttle-jockey with a couple of my jackass friends. When so many are starving because their meager wages can't keep up with the sudden sharp spike in the cost of rice and wheat or because the military regime that runs their cyclone-ravaged country refuses to allow the outside world to lend a hand, my biggest concern was whether the next place we stopped to eat would have something on the menu that didn't have meat.
Alright, that's enough of the philosophizing. I'll start with an observation from our room at Motel 6...

...They don't leave you the simple things like a coffee maker or even a freakin' bottle of shampoo, but they are considerate enough to include an ashtray that remindes you NOT TO SMOKE!
Chew on that one awhile.
We dined on massive pancakes at a local diner before hitting the road, which was a constantly changing landscape. Coastal cities turned to farmland which turned into hilly valleys before spitting you back out onto the coast north of Santa Barbara.

Lompoc, our only stop of the day, featured this old run-down drive-in. Not quite the same thing as an old movie theater, but SUPPORT YOUR REP HOUSE anyway, dammit!

The drive-in's neglect and disrepair left me a little sad, but I'm all about being positive and blowing sunshine at all of you so I won't go into it.

We blew through the familiar roads along the the 101 in Santa Barbara County before cutting off at Carpenteria for one last blast before calling it a trip. The roads around Lake Casitas are quite familiar and one of my favorite local rides. Lots of twists and turns, often little traveled during the week and many gorgeous views of the make made it a great end to a few days I'll look back upon with much fondness. (No pics; Took all my concentration to keep up with Damian and keep my bike rubber on the road.)
The hardest part besides coping with my utter disdain for the Southland has been slowing down to cope with all the congestion. I'd grown used to life at high-velocity the past several days. I've become addicted to the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you grab a handful of throttle and take off from a dead stop at breakneck speed. The landscape is even prettier when it's a little blurry. In the hours since I've been back, I've had to change my riding style from "Go Like Hell" with a side order of "Enjoy the View" to "Search and Destroy" spiked with "Watch Your Ass." Y'know, typical L.A. driving.
I know, I know...I'm not moping. I plan on drowning my sorrow in movies the next few nights, a couple at the New Bev and maybe one at the Silent Movie Theater. Replace one addiction with another, y'know?
Thanks to my mates for several days of high-throttle fun, laughs and mindboggling sights. I'm already at work on planning the '09 trip...

PLAYLIST
AC/DC - Highway to Hell, Back In Black
Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Social Distortion - Prison Bound, Social Distortion
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto

Road Trip '08 Ch. 3: The Lost Boys

2008-05-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

"One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach...All the damn vampires."
-Grandpa, The Lost Boys (1987)

Strange quote to start a road-trip blog, you say? Or maybe I'm refering to our knack for going exactly the wrong way? Well then, you don't know much about Central California landmarks or '80s film trivia. Pay attention and try to keep up.
The day began with a tug on my right foot as Damian was arousing me from my earplug aided slumber. He and the Ninja had gotten up hours earlier, during which time they poked around Half Moon Bay and spoken to our hotel manager, a fellow motorcyclist who recommended a couple rides we could take on our way down the coast. We thanked him for his help, then said "no thanks" to his suggestions as they'd take us away from the coast and the weather was absolutely spectacular.
Before we headed south, Damian, a surfer most his life, wanted to check out the legendary break Mavericks, which was familiar with thanks to the brilliant documentary RIDING GIANTS.

A short drive and a moderate hike later, we were at the end of a point which offered a view of several surfers braving the cold water and less than spectacular surf.

The beach leading to Mavericks featured three headstones, one of which featured something scrawled in Hawaiian to memorialize Mark Foo, whose death at Mavericks was detailed in RIDING GIANTS.

"See that," Damian said pointing to a view of the coast stretching as far as we could see to the south. "That's what we're riding today."

But we weren't riding anywhere until we filled both our bikes and our guts. We found a little cafe on the way back to PCH that looked like the kinda place that would have good coffee. Not only was the java good, but all three of us ordered a plate of righteous fish tacos that were made even better by some handcrafted chipotle salsa.

Finally, somewhere around 1:30, we hit the road and were greeted by glorious weather and very little traffic. Such a combination allowed me to get a slew of roadshots on the way to our next stop:

...and what a stop it was. Pescadero State Beach was the first of many, many sights that day that were simply breathtaking.

I used a break in the action created by a truck turning around in the middle of the road...

...to get some shots of my mates...

...before we pressed on to Santa Cruz.

Which brings us back to the title and quote that raised an eyebrow or two at the beginning of this whole mess. THE LOST BOYS is an important film to most of the MTV Generation, but it means even more to me, dammit. It was the summer of 1987, and my buddy Jeff and I rode our bikes to the Peppertree Theater to see a double bill of ROBOCOP and THE LOST BOYS eight freakin' times in two weeks. (Admission was $2 with membership. DAMN I miss the Peppertree. SUPPORT YOUR REP HOUSE!) So dare I say I was an even bigger fan than those screaming girls who pasted pictures of Corey and Corey on everything.
As any Doom-Generation film geek knows, the fictional town of Santa Carla was actually Santa Cruz; The Boardwalk was actually the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.
Damian and Ninja didn't have the luxury of sifting through my film geek rabble on their computer screens like you do, they got it loud and live in full force the night before in Half Moon Bay. So is it any wonder that they'd agree to stop by the boardwalk where one of my most beloved films was crafted just to shut me up?
Sadly, the grungy, gritty, graffiti-covered boardwalk that David and the gang swooped to feed upon unsuspecting beach trash has recieved a facelift in the 20 years since THE LOST BOYS reigned.

A discussion of deep-fried Twinkies/candy bars at the cafe we had fish tacos in earlier led to a pact to scarf one down at the Boardwalk. A precident for culinary adventures had been set in a mexican restaurant in Sonoma on last year's trip when I ordered an omelet with cactus in it. (It actually was a pretty good omelet.)
This year, however, I'm happy to report I dodged a bullet. The Twinkie guy failed to show up for work.

Next stop would be Carmel, where we hit something we hadn't counted on: Traffic.

Cars were stacked for miles at a pair of intersections within a mile of each other, but we were able to save ourselves valuable minutes that would have been spent sucking exhaust pipe by bisecting the two clogged lanes until things got moving again. Envy the motorcyclist, folks.
Besides, I was on a mission. Carmel is home to the greatest diner I've ever eaten at.

You haven't had breakfast until you've eaten the Black Bear's 7-grain, almond granola pancakes. And I should know, since I've also had them many times for lunch and dinner to boot. To top it off, the coffee is sublime.

We'd gotten off to a late start and spent a lot of time dawdling in Half Moon Bay and our various photo opportunities along the coast. It was going to take a bit of hustle to get down the coast before it got very dark and very cold, which was a bad combination on PCH's narrower, windy parts. We made one more stop shortly after leaving Carmel, where I saw a tree that I swear is a dead ringer for the Bansai that Mr. Miyagi's family used as the inspiration for their dojo's insignia.

What followed during the next couple hours and 130 miles until we landed in San Luis Obispo can only be described as 100-horsepower paradise. The ride was simply amazing. The Pacific's calm blue stretched as far as we could see to the west, seeming as if it went on forever. The landscape occasionally changed, but was always spectacular.
My words cant possibly do it justice, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We did make one more stop so we could pay a visit to some vacationing elephant seals who come down to San Simeon every year to lounge on the beach and get their freak on.

And after yesterday's fiasco, I'm happy to report we didn't get lost...

...

...

...

...well, maybe a little once we hit SLO and didn't have the Pacific to keep us honest anymore. But that did give me an opportunity to snag a couple pics of a cool, very well lit theater they have down here.

SUPPORT YOUR REP HOUSE!
Tomorrow, we're coming home.

PLAYLIST (V-Rock Day)
A mix of a bunch of stuff, mostly old metal, glam, redneck rock and stuff my folks used to have on the radio in the car when I was a kid.
As a related aside, I listened to "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws a couple times today, and it's painfully obvious that it's a far superior song to Free Bird, which is considered a classic-rock staple along the lines of Stairway To Heaven. Yet no one under the age of 50 has ever heard "Green Grass..." Life just ain't fair.

...and don't even get me started on "Whipping Post", which is better than both "Free Bird" and "Stairway..." Especially that live version on At Fillmore East that used to take up the whole second side of the album back when there was such thing as albums.
I'm just sayin'.

DAY THREE STATISTICS
3: Number of idiots we lagged for miles but refused to pull over to allow us to pass.
2: Number of the aforementioned idiots sporting Nevada license plates. Starting to wonder about that state. And I thought Oregon drivers were freakin' useless.
4: Number of cups of Black Bear Diner coffee consumed within one hour. Needless to say, I was amped for the ride into SLO. You shoulda heard me singing Hair of the Dog by Nazareth inside of my helmet at an ear-shatter decibel level.

Road Trip '08 Ch. 2: Enter The Dragon

2008-05-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

After a long, dreary, wet, uneventful ride up I-5 on day 1, all we hoped for Memorial Day was some blue sky and a road or two that, you know, turn right and left and stuff.
A peek out our hotel bathroom window within seconds of waking up revealed we were off to a good start. There wasn't a cloud in the skies above Merced and it had stopped raining early enough in the wee hours of the morning for the tarmac (As well as our bikes) to completely dry from Sunday's soggy weather.
We packed up and set out for breakfast to find the entire town closed to honor this country's fallen vets. (Including the Merced Theater. Good to see that even the podunks have a reperatory theater. Support your local rep house, people!) Before all hope was lost, Damian directed our attention to a shining black and yellow beacon of hope on the right...

I suppose I should explain: I've been obsessed with Sonic Drive-In for several years now. The chain has been advertising during college football games for as long as I can remember, but since they don't operate in L.A. I've never been to one, leaving me wondering for years now at what I might be missing. The people on the commercials always look so happy clutching their 96-oz. raspberry lemonades and Super Chipotle Bacon Ranch Monterey Jack Triple Cheeseburgers.
I discuss this with people from parts of the country that have Sonics, and I'm always met with a look that is equal parts confusion and disgust. May not be a big deal to someone who grew up on post-Sunday School Cinnamon Toast Sticks somewhere in the Texas panhandle, but they obviously don't understand the effect years of mass marketing can have on a guy.
I informed the crew for last year's trip about my wish to finally get my hands on some Sonic-style 1,200-calorie goodness, but it never quite panned out. We only passed one, and it was literally two miles up the road from where we had just eaten outside of Bakersfield.
But I am a stranger to America's Drive-In no longer!

Seeing as how they had absolutely nothing that didn't have pork in it on the breakfast menu, I decided to go big and get a super breakfast burrito that had both sausage and bacon. I'd like to tell you that a breakfast twenty years in the making was so phenomenal that it shook the pillars of Heaven, but, as we all know, greasy, fried fast food has its limitations. I do give Sonic huge points, though, for masking the taste of their food's overprocessing with a heaping fistful of diced jalapenos.
With a belly full of grease, we hit a local drug store for ear plugs (Three dudes who snore, one hotel room. Do the math) and ear phones (One of my ear buds didn't survive Sunday's trip.) I only bring this up becuase I discovered the greatest thing I'd ever laid eyes on near the cash register.

Because, deep down inside, don't we all wanna smell like Ace Frehely?
We took Route 140 out of Merced, which began with a long, straight stretch that led us out of the San Joaquin Valley. I took this opportunity to work up the balls to fish my camera out of my pocket and get some shots whilst moving at 85 mph.

The road gradually got greener and twistier as we neared Mariposa, and I howled with delight as we finally, FINALLY got to make a sweeping left turn. We'd put nearly 250 miles between ourselves and home and these were the first proper corners we got to lean our bikes into, but this road was well worth the wait as we were cradled between wooded areas and rock formations through a series of rolling high-speed switchbacks.
We blew through Mariposa -- Our first night's stop on last year's trip -- and turned left at Route 49 and the reason we took a 90 mile detour on our way to the coast...

The Little Dragon is about 15 miles of pristine, twisty bits that carve through the countryside outside of Yosemite and were pretty much tailor-made for idiots on motorcycles. The road attracts gearheads from all over as three other motorcyclists and an older couple in a mind-bogglingly large RV pulled over to join us at the top of the Dragon while I snapped pictures and Damian tried to figure out why his speedometer had called it quits.

One of the riders, a middle-aged guy on a red Honda, had a seemingly GPS-esque knowledge of the local roads and recommended a route West for us that would lead us on a backroad alongside a winding river and, best of all, around Modesto's urban blight. When we greeted him with puzzled looks as he rapidly rattled off a series of street and route names, he offered to draw us a map before we set off.

After stopping to help a girl who, from what we could gather, was tossed off of the back of her boyfriend's Ninja when he took a sharp hairpin too hot (HIM: Road rash. HER: Likely a broken radius & ulna. Nothing that wouldn't heal.), we tore into the Dragon like a fat guy at Sizzler. I was literally giggling into my helmet as I flicked my Kawi from side-to-side through a seemingly endless series of lefts and rights. The road is simply a dream on a bike as it rolls its way down into a valley, over a bridge, through several wooded areas and back into another set of hills that cradle you until the road is all too quickly interrupted by a stop sign and a small town called Coulterville. We pulled over to grab a drink and bask in the Dragon's awesomeness some more before we veered left onto Route 132 and broke toward the coast.

Needless to say, a crudely scrawled map is pretty much useless in our hands, so we failed to make a turn or two where our Honda-riding buddy suggested and stayed on the 132 until it spat us out in Modesto. Fortunately, the 132 was also a great ride that serpentined through the foothills and tiny towns like La Grange (Cue ZZ Top) that look like they were literally carved out of the hillside a century and a half ago.
We pulled over in a tiny town called Keyes where we planned a new super-secret route that would bypass the freeways in favor of what appeared on an area map to be a winding back road through the farmland.
Also needless to say, we wound up lost again and instead limped through two tiny blink-and-you-miss-them cities, Grayson (Which I assume is named after Nightwing) and Westley. Our failed reservoir run led us smack dab into I-5, which we happily jumped onto before we could get lost yet again.
The 5 led to the 580, which in turn led to a road that we were sure would snake around Livermore and circumnavigate a giant reservoir before leading us to the home stretch into Half Moon Bay.
Yep. Lost again. No reservoir, and the bit of switchback that we did ride was spent behind a beat up old camper who refused to either drive faster than 5 miles less than the posted speed limit or pull over and let the line of traffic that had accumulated in his wake pass. When Grandpa did finally pull over, I at least was able to grab another road shot.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Fremont where we planned the final leg of day 2 (Wishful thinking, I know) while I destroyed a plate of huevos rancheros and a massive iced tea. I suggested we should take the San Mateo Bridge, which would not only offer a sweet ride across the Bay but would also then lead us directly into Half Moon Bay leaving us no chance whatsoever at getting lost.

The view from the bridge was amazing, as the low road seems to be floating on the San Francisco Bay and offers a scenic shot of the Golden Gate Bridge to the right as you head into San Mateo. I considered trying for another road shot, but thought better of it when a few strong gusts threatened to blow all three of us into one of the adjacent lanes.
The hills got greener and the air got colder, signalling that we were getting close to the coast. We pulled into the hotel a little before 7, and were thrilled to find a bigger room than the one we were offered in Merced which meant there was no threat of us rolling over into each other's bunks sometime during the night. The hotel was also within walking distance of a taqueria that makes a slammin' shrimp burrito I'd consider having again for breakfast tomorrow if we weren't getting a free one from the fine folks at Holiday Inn.
We're sticking to the coast for the rest of the way home, which I'm excited about because I've never seen Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. I'm doubly excited because that huge freakin' body of water to the West greatly reduces our risk of making a wrong right turn and getting lost.
PLAYLIST (Jack White Day)
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells, Elephant, Icky Thump
The Racounteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers, Consolers For The Lonely

DAY TWO STATISTICS
1: Number of crashes suffered
0: Number of crashes my crew suffered
3: Number of potentially great rides on two-lane blacktops ruined by ridiculously slow Northern California motorists
Too many to count: Number of minutes spent lost and superfluous miles spent getting unlost

Road Trip '08 Ch. 1: Escape From L.A.

2008-05-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

As I sat in my apartment hours before leaving on a road trip I'd been planning and drooling with anticipation over for months, I faced a crisis of conscious: Can I put down my Guitar Hero controller long enough to head out on the road?
My crew and I would literally riding up and down the Golden State for nearly four days, logging a total of 1000 miles and change on our bikes. Sounds great and all, but I'm never going to beat 3's & 7's by Queens of the Stone Age if I go on a four-day hiatus from Guitar Hero, my newest obsession and a game more addicting than candy-flavored heroin.
Fortunately, I had, to quote Jules Winfield, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity, packed up a few changes of underwear and hit the tarmac. Last year's road trip -- Another grand tour of California that took me as far North as San Francisco over five days -- gave me a taste for travelling on two wheels, and now I'm dying for some more.
Damian, a co-worker and fellow survivor of the '07 odyssey, is back again this year. He recently traded in a late-model Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster that was neither speedy nor masterful and often left him stranded on the side of the road for a rugged Kawasaki KLR650 that looks like it could go through Hell and back on a single tank. The thin motocross seat, however, leaves Damian wondering aloud if his ass will fare as well.
This year's rookie is John, a.k.a. the Respiratory Ninja. I gave him the name because of his propensity for appearing to deliver a breathing treatment to a lunger in the ER, then disappearing again just as quickly before anyone has a chance to page him for help. The Ninja rides an exotic Ducati Monster that's sexy as Hell and sounds like a pit bull on steroids but starts to resemble a torture rack when its rider is told he has to ride 300 miles a day bent over the gas tank.
My beloved blue Kawi Z750 was rejuvinated in the days leading up to Sunday's departure by a transfusion of the essential motor fluids and a high-performance K&N air filter that has it screaming like a banshee above 6,000 RPM. I was pleasantly surprised when, fresh from Kolbe Cycles, the scenery got real blurry as I grabbed a handful of throttle entering the 101. My boy was definitely ready to devour some pavement.

Missing in action is Scott, yet another coworker who was the brains of our operation. Last year he meticulously planned the ride down to the last detail, ensuring we always wound up on a little-traveled windy back road that begged to be carved on a motorcycle. A newborn is keeping him at home this year, and pretty much ensures that we will get lost and wind up somewhere in Nevada.
As I predicted, we hit our first snag Saturday night before we even logged a single mile. Damian with news of a weather report that called for snow on the 395, which we planned to take for a couple hundred miles through the Sierras before landing in Yosemite National Park's back porch.
As I headed to the New Bev to catch another Saturday midnight masterpiece (One word: PAHOO), Damian glommed together another route that would take us straight through California's seemingly endless miles of cow-crap-scented farmland to Merced, a slightly larger dot in a string of tiny ones that line Interstate 5.
GOOD NEWS: We won't get snowed on.
BAD NEWS: The road is long, straight, offers absolutely nothing that would even remotely be considered interesting and, as I mentioned a paragraph ago, smells like cow crap.
So, with dark, angry-looking clouds dominating the sky and threatening to dump on us at any given moment, we left the friendly confines of the 818 for a long day of sledding. Fortunately, it did nothing more than trickle during our 200-mile odyssey, but that didn't deter John from bundling up like he was trying to reach the North Pole. The Ninja resembled Randy from the epic A Christmas Story as he donned a bright blue rain suit on top of a thick leather Alpinestars jacket on top of a sweat shirt on top of a short-sleeved shirt on top of a long-sleeved shirt. He completed the dog-sled driver ensemble with a hood beneath his beanie beneath his helmet. The crowning achievement came during our first fuel stop out in the middle of nowhere when he emerged from the gas station's convenience store grinning from ear to ear and holding his hands in front of his face for Damian and I to inspect.

"They sell mittens!" he happily proclaimed. His hands now sported a pair of white woolen gloves that made him look a little like an Asian Mickey Mouse. Who knew you could buy so much happiness for $1.50 in a cowtown Gas & Sip?
We landed in Merced cold, wet and starving, but still amped from the exhiliration hours of high-speed riding bring. We got through the hours of rain completely unscathed, which is more than we can say for the bottom half of John's Smurf suit.

Hours of high-velocity travel shredded the pants, which gave 'em kind of a cool, psychadelic-era fringe effect. He didnt agree and promptly filed them in the hotel dumpster.
We had to get squared away before going on a hunting and gathering mission, and were dismayed when we surveyed our sleeping arrangement.

Two beds and a rollaway cot lined up to form one megabed that will allow three grown-ass men to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder. Apparently, Damian neglected to mention that he booked us the Brokeback Suite.
We followed the first rule of the road trip -- Whenever possible, sample the local culture by passing over the big chains to grub at mom & pop restaurants -- and hit up a local barbecue joint that had good fish tacos and huge freakin' beers.

But even better than the provisions was the mascot standing guard at the front door. I seized the oppotunity to correct years of shame that my Harley-owning family members have felt about yours truly buying a Japanese bike and took a ride on a huge Hawg.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a bit more eventful as backtrack a little toward Yosemite to hit some of the tasty roads leading out of the park before doing a U-Turn and heading West to Half Moon Bay. I fell in love with Yosemite last year, and even though we're too pressed for time to head into the park, the area surrounding it is also beautiful and featured a couple of pristine bits of Tarmac that I can't wait to shred.
And who knows what other treasures will be unearthed at the area convenience stores?

PLAYLIST
Metallica - Black Album, Master of Puppets, Ride The Lightning

DAY ONE STATISTICS
1: Pairs of fuzzy white gloves purchased.
4: Estimated average miles you can travel through the Central Valley without passing a roadside sign pimping nut growers, a local nut store or some nut-related attraction.
0: Number of nut-related attractions we stopped for.
1: Number of towns passed named Chowchilla. If you think that's not worth noting, say "Chowchilla" out loud to yourself a couple times, and overenunciate the "Ow" and "Chilla."
1: Number of roads passed named Sandy Mush Road. Also fun to say aloud, but it also made me wonder if it was named after a patch of sand or in honor of a local woman named Sandy Mush.

Did you use the commode story?

2008-05-20T00:01:00.001-07:00

You know how you see a movie so many times that it becomes attached to the period of your life when you watched it the most? Just a mention of the title brings back a flood of memories from the period when a copy of the film took permanent residence on your VCR/DVD Player/TiVo.

One of those movies for me is
RESERVOIR DOGS. It was the mid '90s, college and the waning days of the VHS age. A ratty ol' copy of the film that was pressed pre-PULP FICTION (i.e. When the word Tarantino was only spoken among geeks) was viewed ad nauseum by the unofficial film club I belonged to comprised by my roomie Ray, his girlfriend Jo and four chicks who lived in an apartment down the hall.

Despite having seen it more times than any human should, I had never seen it on the big screen until Friday night when I caught a showing atThe New Beverly Cinema, which has revived it as the de facto midnight Friday movie following a hiatus.

I find it hard to believe that any of you reading this, all three of you, haven't seen it several times yourselves and heard more opinions than you'd care to on it already, so I'll keep it brief. What struck me during this viewing was how well it has aged after all these years and how well it stacks up against QT's bigger-budgeted films. The film doesn't feel dated, or even played out despite the endless hordes of pale imitators that followed in the mid-'90s. (I'm looking at you, THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD.)

I'm still struck by Mr. Orange's backstory, in particular the flashback-within-a-flashback that takes place when he learns and practices the commode story that cements his place on Joe's diamond caper roster. In an era where the audience lacks the attention span to follow any story that doesn't lead them by the hand through three, simple linear acts, it took a crate full of balls to break away from a flashback to allow the characters to digress about how they got to the flashback in the first place.

In fact, RES DOGS reminds me a lot of Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut. Both QT and Zep came firing right out of the chute w/a bold and fully developed sense of style that you wouldn't expect from rookies. Both singlehandedly kickstarted their respective genres. And both are just plain badass.

Welcome to the 21st century...

2008-05-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

... eight years late is better than never, right?

I've been on a technological roll as of late. Hot on the heels of acquiring a real-life computer and replacing the world's oldest cel phone (Seriously, the thing had a rotary dial on it) with my shiny new iPhone (Even covered it in a badass mirrored case that looks like the guitar Matthew Bellamy from Muse uses), I now have now ended my holdout as the last remaining American under the age of 40 *not* to have a blog.

Yes, sunshine, you're looking at it right now.

I'm not going to bore you with the mundane details of my life. Instead, I'll be focusing on my two true passions as I explore the backroads of California on my Kawi and wear an Eric-sized butt groove into the seats of as many of Los Angeles' reperatory movie houses as I can. For it's endless faults, LA really does have a righteous rep house scene that brings out some of the coolest filmmakers to press the flesh with us geeks. It's like one perpetual roving film festival that's allowed me to see some of my all-time favorites on the big screen as God intended and meet some of the people who've been prolonging my childhood for nearly two decades now.

Above is a pic to get the ball rolling, taken in the men's room of an overpriced cafe out in the middle of freakin' nowhere on a tire- meltingly hot day last weekend as I chased my mom on her modded-to-the teeth Harley Softail Deluxe and her friends, my "Uncle" Dave and Allison, on their two-wheeled Screaming Eagle monstrosity up the 101 to a tiny dot on the map called Los Alamos. The sign welcoming us and dozens of other middle-aged Harley riders that day to their tiny town was pimping this summer's "61th Annual Old Days." Maybe they didn't have an "s" to put an "st" after the 61, but I just assumed it was some kinda local dialect.

I still don't know why there was a John Wayne standee in the men's room of this cafe, but I figured it was worth capturing for posterity. Or maybe it was the heat stroke talking.