I Build Awesome Props

It's true. And you can learn how to build awesome props as well. In the interest of increasing the overall quality of stage props, I offer the following.

Here's my prop building process.

It's about two things: The silhouette and the details.

THE SILHOUETTE

This is how we identify things, especially at a distance. It's the general shape of the thing that we look at. In World War II, servicemen were given charts of airplane silhouettes to study. As kids, we all picked out shapes we perceived in random cloud forms. It's an innate ability that dates back to when our eyesight developed as babies. That's the first point: silhouette.

THE DETAILS

The tiny little things matter. If you don't want an audience to miss the forest for the trees, you damn well better have plenty of trees out there. Or something like that. A minor, seemingly insignificant thing out of place will be noticed, if only subliminally. But the right detail in the right spot goes a long way towards selling something. Marilyn Monroe wouldn't be Marilyn Monroe without the mole. You probably can't tell me what side of her face it's on without a Google image search, but you'd notice if it was missing.So let's take an actual prop, the first prop I built for Red Snapper:

(sorry about the crappy cellphone picture!)

The problem: For her "Monkeywrench" number, Snappy needed a tub of grease she could reach into and get a handful of grease to smear across her breasts. (It's as hot as it sounds!) Real grease would suck to clean up, and wouldn't be opaque enough to hide her nipples. These are the problems we face in life. So we decided to create our own tub of grease, and slip a container of chocolate frosting inside.Here's an actual tub of grease for comparison:

(promotional picture swiped from online somewhere)

The silhouette is right on the money. Not that too many people in L.A. have ever packed ball bearings. In grease, I hasten to add. For the "Monkey Grease" logo I tried to match the color palette of her costume. This is a detail point:

(photo by Dan Hendericks)

There are pictures that better illustrate this point, but I'm a sucker for a girl with a naked back. (Because it usually means a naked front, as well.) It's a bit hard to tell, but there are green swarovski crystals on the shimmy belt and green threads in the frilly trim. And of course, the red and pink. This photo also sets up what is the crowning achievement of my prop:

(another crappy cellphone picture)

Ta-da! I added a monkey detail to the label to match her hat! This monkey is on the other side of the "Monkey Brand Grease" text as well, inverted so as to add a little variety. And because monkeys like to hang upside-down.A couple of other things to note: This tub was purchase at the 99 cent store and was full of sidewalk chalk. I cleaned it out and painted the inside black, so as to look as if it is full of black grease. I used glitter paint on the letters to give them a little burlesque sparkle. That, and I used two of Snappy's green swarovskis on the label.

I hope this has been educational. Next time, I'll discuss the process that resulted in the infamous "Jack Box" and sperm puppets from Red Snapper's "Every Sperm is Sacred" number!

IRONY:

"How Celebrity Narcissim is Seducing America."

Celebrity narcissism. Like maybe putting your face on the cover of a book?

Back When I Was a Member of Weezer ...

Last year, Pamela and I were members of Weezer for a couple of hours. I blogged about it on MySpace, but I forgot that there are people (Mom!) who read this blog but are not on MySpace. So here are the Weezer posts:

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Weezer Hootenanny

Current mood: focused
Category: Music

So on a whim I sent an e-mail to try out for this hootenanny tour Weezer is doing. Pam got the bulletin on MySpace announcing the band's intention to do an old folk-style hootenanny tour, recording each show, and choosing the best tracks for a future release. I didn't think much of it. Believe it or not, I have a low opinion of my musical skills (which is probably why I don't promote my MySpace music site.)

I sent the e-mail, promising to bring my mandolin of picked (the rules include bringing instruments you can easily carry, and I figured everyone and his dog would be submitting with guitars) and linking to the aforementioned MySpace music site.Well, I got picked. So tomorrow Pamela and I will be whisked away to an ultra-secret location (she's my plus one.)

The problem is, I'm no where near as confident on the mando as I am on the guitar. And see above statement re: my opinion of my musical skills.

So I've spent most of the weekend boning up on my mando skills (with brief breaks here and there to edit my "Pin-Up Girls" draft, work on a puppet, and see Get Smart). Thankfully, they picked easy songs for the hootenanny ("Pork and Beans", "Islands in the Sun", Radiohead's "Creep", "Say it Ain't So", "El Scorcho", and "Beverly Hills") and I believe I have finally mastered the F-sharp-minor chord for mandolin.

I'm strangely not nervous about tomorrow, in part because Weezer is so cool. The way I look at it, it takes massive cajones to open up the band to a group of (mostly, I assume) amateur musicians. Name one other modern pop band that has done anything even remotely like this. It's nuts. So the boys in the band are either insane, or they're genuinely open and welcoming individuals. Possibly a combination of all three. So I imagine tomorrow will hold a pretty laid-back atmosphere, lots of laughs, and an over all good time.And for one brief, shining moment, I will be an auxillary member of Weezer. Sort of. In a way.

So it's time to pack up the mando, smooch Pammy once again for pushing me to send that e-mail (okay, it wasn't exactly a whim) and get a good night's sleep.

I'll be sure to let you all know how it went!(P.S. If you haven't purchased the Red Album yet, for crying out loud DO SO! It's by far their best album yet, and may be the best pop album of the year. Well, at least until John Mayer's new one drops next month. Seriously, though -- This album kicks all kinds of ass.)

* * *

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Weezer Hootenanny wrap-up

Current mood: exhausted
Category: Music

We arrived at the 20th Century Fox parking structure a little early, and wound up standing around for an hour waiting for the busses to begin ferrying us to the soundstage.



This video was shot shortly before we showed up. There was a lot of impromptu jamming over the course of the day.

In typical Hollywood fashion, there was much "hurry up and wait" between our arrival and finally sitting down Indian style in the soundstage.

This hootenanny was videotaped as part of the Nissan Live Sets series of concerts, brought to you by Yahoo! So the official video will be up, hopefully before too long. We were forbidden from bringing in cameras -- even cell phones -- so there is precious little in the way of images I can share.

But I can try to paint a picture.

Pamela and I were seperated. I was put closer to Rivers (about eight feet in front of him) on the floor, and Pamela was about the same distance from Pat (the drummer.) Brian Bell was on a platform to my right, Scott was to my left. I was hemmed in by Weezers!

The boys in the band are just plain folks. Just as I had thought they would be. They conversed with the fans in their immediate vicinity, laughed, goofed off, etc. When it was work time, they were focused on the task at hand. We ran through the set list, nailing just about every song on the first take. (We did two takes of "Creep" due to feedback issues.) Between songs, these spontaneous jams broke out, and the guys would join in. Jams on "Surfwax", "Troublemaker", and a couple of others. Rivers seemed to enjoy these the most ... I imagine it's because the spontenaity of the jam is the perfect embodiment of the hootenanny spirit.

After "Say it Ain't So" Rivers thanked us and told us "You're all officially Weezers now. You're all in the band." And Scott reiterated this later. That was pretty cool.

The songs in the set sounded just freaking awesome. Aside from having more guitars than Los Lobos, we had melodicas, glockenspiels, kazoos, accordians, a full horn section ... it was truly a smorgasboard of handheld instruments. When we all fired up at once, like the on chorus of "Pork and Beans", it was a thunderous, rapturous wall of sound. A folk symphony if ever there was one.

For the (orginal) members of Weezer, I'd say, "Hootenanny for the win!" Fantastic idea, and a true pleasure to be a part of. And I can't wait to hear the finished product.

* * *

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Weezer Hoot .. a few pictures and link to another video

Current mood: high
Category: Music

Per the official Weezer site, the Hootenanny should be online by 7/15.

I found a few pictures on the official site, and on the blog of Adam Orth, one of Rivers' chums. There's also video of the horn section practicing the "Beverly Hills" solo, to give you a brief taste of what we sounded like!

Here we are:

Pat's playing guitar and Rivers is playing drums, so this is the song "Automatic."

... which reminds me of a joke Dave Grohl once told. What were the last six words the drummer said? "Let's try one of my songs." Seriously though, "Automatic" is one of my faves from the new album.

w00+!

* * *

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Whatever Happened to Jennifer Ward?

Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Life

There are some people you meet who you take an instant liking to. People who can increase the quality of life just by being in the same room with you. Jennifer "Skippy" Ward was one such person for Pamela and me.

Today Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! will present the Weezer Hootenanny that Pamela and I attended a couple of weeks back. And I can't think of Weezer without thinking of Jennifer Ward. She was a HUGE fan of the Weez, back before it was cool.

I know Jennifer had some health issues. The word through the grapevine (via Brian) is that she ran out of options, went to Africa for a last ditch cure, and most likely passed away.

But I don't know what actually happened to her! Maybe the last ditch cure worked, and she's living a wonderful life somewhere. Possibly not. Either way, I would like to know with some certainty "what happened."

At any rate, it's traditional for a band member to put acknowledgements in the liner notes. So here are mine, as a temporary Weezer:

Thanks to Jennifer Ward for turning me on to this scrappy little band all those years ago. Thanks to Kae Ellen for carrying the Weezer torch. And thanks to Pammy for a wonderful Christmas present, and for encouraging me to apply to the Hootenanny.

* * *

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Weezers!

Current mood: excited
Category: Music

The videos are finally posted! I'm mid-second draft of the play I'm writing, so I haven't watched them all yet. You can find the whole enchilada here. I see they included one of our "intermission jams," the song "Jamie."

For your viewing pleasure, if MySpace allows it (they are so weird about embeds!) Here's "Pork and Beans" by the Weezers, all 254 of us:

* * *

It was such a thrill to be a part of this experience. I was contacted a few months later to rejoin the band for their concert at the Forum. Pam and I had tickets for that show, so I reluctantly said "nah." But I have to tell you, as much as I enjoyed watching, I really wanted to be on stage with them.

SNAPPER & BUDDY UPDATE

These two photos were taken by Kristy at Camp Burlesque last week. In the top photo, you see Mr. Buddy with Dully, one of The Felties. In the lower pic, we're doing our "Makin' Whoopee" number.


It was a good set, but not without its problems. The first song ("Pennies from Heaven") and the set-up for our through-line gag was performed in the dark. Like an idiot, I bounded onstage in the dark (after being announced) rather than wait for the lights to come up. Next time this happens, I'm holding (or vamping) until we're lit.

Here's another photo from the same show, to give you an idea of what the first eight to ten minutes of our act looked like:

Atmospheric, but death for a comedy team one half of which is physical comedy.

We also performed a set at Pirate Burlesque on Sunday last at the Redwood Bar. (You may want to stop reading now, Mom.)

Some asshole at the bar -- and I've heard it was the owner or the manager -- decided he didn't care for two dudes making funny in the middle of the show. According to one bystander, this douchebag wanted to "see more tits." I'm saying why stop there? He could've looked in the mirror and seen the biggest twat in the place.

So this guy ... let's just call him Cap'n Asshat... cut the microphone mid-song. I assumed (in spite of his nonstop heckling from the back of the house) that it was a mere accident, and the wonderful producers of the show were quick to give me another microphone. This mic was live for a couple of minutes, and then Cap'n Asshat cut it as well. At that point, I "accidentally" dropped his mic to the floor. Oops.

"That's okay," I boomed, flexing my diaphragm and remembering my Lessac training from college. "I'm theatre people. I don't need a fucking microphone." The audience applauded. The ones in our half of the bar, that is. Our friends and burlesque fans in the back half of the bar couldn't hear us over the carousing and bar talk around them.

At the end of the day, the joke's on Cap'n Asshat: We still got paid and our free drinks. We performed our entire set with a manic hysteria perfect for our through-line gag. And everyone present knew it was a deliberate attempt to shut us up, rather than technical difficulties. Cap'n Asshat didn't derail our performance, as much as he wanted to. What he did was disrespect the producers of a fine show, and the paying patrons in his bar.

Does that sound like the kind of place you'd like to patronize?

I Want One of These:

Pammy and I went to the open house for a new police station in our neighborhood, and they had a line of cop cars dating all the way back to the 1920s. That is where I first encountered the Ford Model A:



So if you're reading this, and you live in a part of the world where old coots keep this sort of thing hidden away in a barn, let me know if you see one for sale!

Okay, Mom ...

I'll update my blog. Sheesh.

Here are a couple of photos Andy Rhodes shared with me:

These are costume photos from Rumpelstiltskin Revised, aka "The Play that Kept Us From Transferring to a Different School" -- no joke! We were looking at transferring to UALR or Arkansas Tech when Al Partridge started telling us about his children's play for what would be my Sophomore year in college (remember, Pam was technically a year ahead of me after taking classes at what used to be called GCCC.)

You may notice that Andy made leg warmers out of that flannel shirt's sleeves! Quite a creative guy, that Andy Rhodes.

Mssrs. Snapper & Buddy

During the run of Pin-Up Girls, on Saturday nights we ran a burlesque show after the play. The girls of The High Jinks Burlesque performed the numbers onstage that they were "performing" off-stage during the play. A good time was had by all.

I hosted these shindigs, and pressed my good friend Phil Kelly into service as my foil and to pick-up the girls' clothes after they stripped out of them. This quickly evolved, and the comedy duo of Mr. Snapper (that's me) and Mr. Buddy (that's Phil) was born!

(That's "song and dance, comedy and variety acts" in my horrid French.)

Lili Von Schtupp, co-producer of the Monday Night Tease; co-host of the Burlesque Podcast; and the brains, brawn and good-looks behind Burlesque 411 asked Mr. Buddy and me if we would host one of her shows. We said "yes," because you don't tell Lili Von Schtupp "no." It looked something like this:

(Forgive me for not going into a specific description of our act. We're still new at this, and our well of material is not very deep. Don't worry: Once we've come up with a long laundry list of songs and bits, I'll be posting video, audio, etc. I believe that there comes a time when you want to give away free samples of milk, so they know the cow is worth buying. That time comes when you have enough milk on your hands, you ... I'm just going to stop at "enough milk on your hands.")

Chris Beyond, the other host of the Burlesque Podcast, co-producer of the Monday Night Tease, and powerhouse photographer invited Mr. Buddy and Me to open the first night of Burlesqueland, the Disney-themed, three day burlesque extravaganza. That looked something like this:

On the third day of Burlesquland, we went to Disneyland, where Mr. Buddy embarrased both of us:

First, I'm already married. Second, the passage of Proposition 8 would prevent us from getting married anyway. Third, I'm just not that into you, Mr. Buddy.

Good news for you! If you missed The High Jinks Burlesque last year, you can see it in all of its enhanced glory next Monday night! (I say "enhanced" because we're adding two wonderful dancers to our line-up, and one of the gals is doing a second number!)

Ukuleles will be strummed! Prat-falls will be executed! Clothes will come off!

My Commute

I started a new day job, and live closer to work now than I have in years! I can actually hop a bus, or ride my bike to work.

It's a downhill ride to work, which means uphill home. I'm not in terrific shape, and the ride home kills me. I will typically take the bus rather than bike for this reason. But I tried something new yesterday:

Bike and bus. I can ride the bike to work, and let the bus take me uphill at the end of the day.

I'm not crazy about LA's public transpotation. We're too spread out for it to be efficient at long distances. Going across town, it can easily take twice as long to get anywhere than by car. Sometimes even longer. Adding the bike into the mix means a quicker way to and from bus stops, metro stations, etc., which cuts down the transit time significantly.

Obsession du Jour

I caught part of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood today. He was in Negri's Music shop, playing toy piano with Negri on guitar and some dude playing this:



(This is not the guy from the show.) The Stumpf Fiddle. I remember seeing these things when I was a kid, but I only have a dim memory of them:



Looks easy to build. I'd like to see Mr. Buddy playing one.



It strikes me as a "deceptively easy to play" instrument, similar to the ukulele. There are two approaches with such an instrument:

1. Take it serious and make music
2. Fart around with it and make noise

So I want one of these things! I guess I'll add it to my musical wish list.

A Secretary of the Arts?

I know that quite a few of my fellows and friends in the theatre community are quite excited about the prospect of the President appointing a Secretary of the Arts. There is a petition online for people to sign with the hope that enough people can persuade the President to create a cabinet-level post for a Secretary of Art. However, it's a prospect that is far from certain; President Obama has far more important matters to attend to.

I haven't felt the need to speak out on this subject myself. I should probably keep my fool mouth shut on the matter. As this touches on an area near and dear to me, I feel that I must throw my two cents out there for the seven people who read this blog to consider. (Hi, mom!)

I do not think President Obama should appoint a Secretary of the Arts.

Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.

-- JFK (emphasis added)

I place a high value on art. It borders on religious expression for me, as many of my past collaborators may attest. I don't expect art to change the world, but I have known it to change the lives of individuals, if only for the moment. I know that in my own life, the right song at the right moment has roused me from the depths of depression. Whenever I feel washed-out emotionally and physically a trip to the Getty Museum recharges my batteries.

I found the above quote from President Kennedy in the body of a speech entitled "The Separation of Art and State." This speech was delivered by David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute to the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts in 1995. It sums up my feelings on the matter of a "Secretary of the Arts" with near perfection. Actually, the title sums it up nicely.

Imagine for a moment that someone were proposing a Secretary of the News Media or Secretary of Peaceable Assemblage. It's a no-brainer, right? Freedom of expression, as well as the freedom of the press and the right to peaceably assemble is guaranteed by the first amendment. Why would we want to petition for bureaucratic centralization of the Arts? There is a quote from the above mentioned speech that speaks to this very issue. It's kind of long, but worth the read:

The latest newsletter from People for the American Way identifies a lot of threats to free expression. Some involve an actual assault on private actions--such as censorship of the Internet, a ban on flag-burning, a denial of tax exemption to groups that support ideas some congressman doesn't like--and fortunately the First Amendment will protect us from most of these. But most of them involve restrictions on the way government funds can be used. Duke University law professor Walter Dellinger, now a member of the Clinton White House, warned recently that such rules are "especially alarming in light of the growing role of government as subsidizer, landlord, employer and patron of the arts."

Keep in mind that this speech is concerned primarily with the National Endowment for the Arts, and was delivered during the Clinton presidency -- a very arts-friendly administration! Multiply this scenario by an executive department on par with the Department of the Treasury, the Justice Department, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce ... are you beginning to see the problem?

Bureaucracies must create work for themselves to justify their very existence. This means regulation. Don't get me wrong, some regulations are good. Protect the little guy against entrenched power -- please! I'm that little guy. But I also believe, "That government is best which governs least." In short, if they don't regulate it, they can't take it away. Fewer cages means more freedom, plain and simple.

"But this is the Obama administration," you may say. "President Obama would never allow something so diabolical as regulation of the arts to occur!" True, but Obama will only serve at most eight years in office. Are you willing to run the risk that the next president won't regulate the arts? What if the country swings hard-right and elects a Pat Buchanan? What if it swings hard-left and elects a Tipper Gore?

So that's worse case scenario: a government agency which regulates art. It's not the likeliest scenario. But how likely was it that torture would become a sanctioned approach to interrogation?

It is not lost on me that the appointment of a Secretary of the Arts would be a largely symbolic gesture. Why in God's name should we pay $193,400 a year for the highly symbolic job of Secretary of Art? And that's just the salary for a cabinet-level position. It does not include the expenses of such an office, including the staff and overheard. It would certainly cost more than the budget of the NEA, which will top out at just over $144 million this year. The Department of Education is the smallest cabinet-level department, and it has an annual budget of nearly $69 billion. You can figure a Department of the Arts would have a budget somewhere between those two numbers, which would be a lot to pay for symbolism.

This is a matter of politics, and I understand how passionately people may feel about this. I am open to differences of opinion, and would be happy to hear other points of view.

The Crocodile Puppet

I built this for Red's "Crocodile Rock" number. The idea was to encourage the audience to "sing along" and then stalk her around the stage, ripping her clothes off. Here's the original video of Elton John's appearance on the Muppet Show for reference:



And for my Mom who can't watch YouTube videos at work, here's a screen capture:



I'm going to jump ahead to a photo of the final look of the act:


Photo by Shannon Cottrell, snagged from LA Weekly. They posted a review and slideshow of the evening, Monday Night Tease's Muppet (of Burlesque) Show. (The slideshow includes pictures that may not be safe for work.)

Not too shabby. A burlesque act is impressionism. The goal is not to create an exact duplicate. The goal is parody. Red does this extraordinarily well in her costuming.

I didn't wish to build a replica of the Muppet croc, but rather a recognizable croc silhouette with a Muppet "look".

As always, it started with sketches:


(The little guy in the middle was an idea for the "mini crocs". More about them in a bit.)

I did some visual research on crocs (thank you Google image search!) but pretty much winged the construction. I started with the head, figuring that was the most crucial thing to get right. We're visual creatures. I've heard it said (though I can't recall the exact context) that the first thing we become aware of as babies are our parent's faces. In particular the eyes. We gravitate to faces, hence the importance of getting the head right:



The eye and nostril ridges are temporary, just to give myself a better idea of what he's going to look like when finished.

I started with the mouthplate, covered it in felt, and built up the head. The cranium is the same "wedge" style of construction I learned from Andrew Young of Puppetvision. I cannot pimp his Tumbles P. Bear Project tutorial enough.

I made and kept paper patterns of each foam piece that went into building this puppet on the off chance that I have to build another. I doubt I will, but you never know.

I draped the fabric on the foam body and cut and stitched it into place. (I secured the fabric to the foam with a bit of hot glue.) Here's the finished puppet:



I should say "sort of" finished. There is a lot of surface detail I would have liked to add, but I ran out of time. The eyes are yellow ping-ping balls mounted with this really neat trick I learned from Russ Walko. (I don't want to give away any of his secrets.) The teeth are uncovered foam, snipped into shape and painted white. The legs were machine sewn by my wife who has far more patience than I do.

We also put together 35 "mini crocs" and distributed these to the audience for the "sing-along" portion of the song. Three pieces, built like oven mitts, and hot glued together. We took them all to "craft night" and encouraged whoever felt like it to give these puppets their finishing touches. The results are as wild and varied as the ladies who worked on them:



So popular were these guys, we didn't get one of them back at the end of the night. Which was exactly as intended.

By the way -- if you haven't already, please VOTE FOR RED SNAPPER! She's running for Miss Viva Las Vegas 2009, and the opportunity to dance for close to a thousand people in Vegas! If you have voted, please pass the link along to your friends. Only the top six have guaranteed slots in the competition! In order for your vote to count, you must receive a confirmation e-mail that includes a little link to verify your vote. If you don't receive this confirmation e-mail [and it may show up in your spam filter] please let me know!

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

So I'm flipping through the Daily Trojan today -- did I mention that my day job is at USC now? Anyway, I'm flipping through the Daily Trojan, and my eyes landed on something that has completely renewed my faith in the younger generation. Check this out:

Yes, under the "worst" category of 2008 fashion, the wise-beyond-his-years fashion genius Brett Malec lists both Uggs and Crocs. As you may recall, I have strong feelings about these "shoes" myself.

The print is fuzzy, and I can't find this online, so here's what wunderkind Brett Malec has to say:

Ugg Boots

Especially when it's not even cold out; we're in LA, people!

Crocs

No matter how "comfortable" ther are, nothing that ugly should ever be worn on the human body.

I would add that Uggs make the wearer's ankles look huge and crocs look like what inmates at an asylum might wear, but that's just me.

Cheers, Brett Malec. May you have much success in life.

Just go along. You'll start happenning too. Oh the places you'll go!

-- Dr. Suess

The End of an Era

Requim for a VHS, photo by moneboh (some rights reserved)

I don't remember exactly what was the first VHS tape I owned. It may have been Chaplin's The Gold Rush or Danny Kaye's The Inspector General. But I do remember vividly the first thing I ever taped off of television: 1986's Dom Deluise and Friends Part 4. It was lame.

Harry Knowles points out an old (in internet years) article about the last manufacturer of pre-taped VHS tapes closing his business. This has sparked a wave of nostolgia in myself and many others, including Harry:

God. VHS changed everything. The ability to play and own something you loved when you wanted to was a miracle.

I grew up in the Nazarene Church, a relatively conservative evangelical denomination. I understand that the rules have softened (thanks to a current Nazarene minister who was kind enough to comment the last time I brought this up), but in my childhood, going to the movies was strictly verboten. I imagine few Nazarenes actually kept that rule -- heck, we had cable television and listened to rock music in the privacy of the parsonage, also against the rules -- but if a young preacher and his family had publicly flaunted the church's rules, it would have caused no end of trouble. I saw exactly two films at the movies before my ninth birthday: Popeye in 1980 and The Legend of the Lone Ranger in 1981.

As a side note, and so you really grasp the depth of what this means, here is a partial list of movies I did not see when they were released to theatres:

• Superman
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Superman II
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Return of the Jedi
• Ghostbusters
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Gremlins

... and perhaps the most depressing of all ...

• The Muppet Movie

This isn't a plea for pity, although you have to admit, if it were, it'd be a pretty spectacular and effective plea! As a child, I read a lot of novelizations. So much so that even after my mom said
"enough's enough!" and insisted we be allowed to consume popular culture like normal kids, I still boght and read novelizations. My friends in Chicago were aghast that I was reading the paperback adaptation of Batman in the days leading up to that film's release. I am proud of the fact that I got through all 246 pages of E.T. The Extraterrestrial at age six. Not so proud of reading Spaceballs during recess.

Like I said, we had cable. This was an infrequent hook-up, as A) we lived in rural places most of the time (i.e. no cable service) and B) basic cable was pretty much all we could afford on mom & dad's salaries. (Oh! Free HBO weekends. How I miss you!)

Now when we got our first VCR, the film education of Andrew Moore began. Don't ask me why walking into a video store was less sinful than walking into a movie theatre. Perhaps one could cover and say "I was renting Billy Graham movies" when in fact the big plastic cases contained Porky's, Revenge of the Nerds and Zapped.

As Harry points out, the quality of videotape is atrocious. But at the time, the ability to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark every day after school was freedom most sweet. Who cares about a fuzzy image!

Those first tapes were damned expensive. $80 or so for a new release! So the real market was in bootleg tapings, either the "TV version" (I first saw Police Academy this way) or the pay-cable/video piracy method. The latter was obviously preferred, although copy-protection methods at the time could blur the top 1/8 of the picture. Kind of annoying, but we weren't as interested in the picture quality as we were the story.

And this brings me to the true sadness the death of VHS holds for me: The inevitable end of video stores. Yes, they've been sliding away into non-existence for some time now. Thanks to the compact and lightweight nature of DVD, NetFlix has managed to leverage the USPS (who'd have thought?) against brick-and-morter stalwarts such as Blockbuster. If DVD had never come along, this wouldn't have happened: Mailing VHS tapes would be far too expensive and problematic.

There was a time when you could spend an hour or two browsing the video aisles. Picking up boxes, marveling at the artwork and reading the back. NetFlix is lightning-fast interactive, but it lacks the real-world weight of holding something in your hand and turning it over. There was a time when you ran the risk of your preferred rental not being there when you got to the store. This made that rental far more precious. There was a time when you'd have to go by the video store before work or school to ensure you'd have a copy of that new release to watch later in the evening.

I wouldn't trade my NetFlix subscription for all the free rental tokens in the world. Video stores were notoriously limited in their selection (well, some of them were. Some video stores were run by cinemaphiles who followed their bliss when placing stocking orders.) But it saddens me that you can buy disposable DVDs of New Releases for a few bucks, watch them a couple of times and throw them away. It cheapens what was once an experience that bordered on sacred.

As it so happens, there are movies in existence that have not made the jump to DVD. One such is the next VHS on my list to buy: Penn & Teller Go Public. Yeah, I could go the torrent route and burn it on DVD, but this is the first taste of Penn & Teller I had as a young boy (back in 1985) and I'd like the nostolgic value of owning "the real thing" on VHS.

I leave you with the preview trailer of Penn & Teller Go Public as a reminder of what life was like before the age of disposable DVDs:

The one and only ...

T I G G E R !

Gary Shapiro wasn't joking when he introduced the last act:

"The most wonderful thing about Tigger! is he's the only one!"

He is indeed a singular individual; an iconoclastic boylesque performer who both challenges striptease conventions and pays homage to the very meaning of burlesque, a word that means "comedy" and "parody." His performance last night was extraordinary. Every inch of it.

Last night was the first I've seen him perform live. His reputation and a few YouTube videos precede him; I have never met the man, and I'm intimidated by him. I've heard nothing but accolades: Tigger! is a consummate performer, an athletic extrovert who goes all out (pun intended). He is an incredibly talented and riveting performer with oodles of aesthetic taste and artistic savvy.

He created a character last night. It was a character as well flesh-out and rehearsed as one may find on any so-called "legit" stage. It was a captivating character, a funny character. In its own over-the-top, presentational way, it was a very real character. Tigger! didn't just dance, he put on a mask and imbued it with life. That's good theatre, and he accomplished more in a few minutes than some companies could ever hope to accomplish over the course of an entire run.

Tigger! is performing again at the Monday Night Tease on January 12th. Do not miss him. Money is tight, but you owe it to yourself to pony up the greenbacks and catch this guy in person. I'm co-hosting that night with the verbally vibrant and diligently dapper Patrick the Bank Robber, and it will be a profound honor to share the stage with Tigger!

It's Official ...

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Drama Nerd You sure do love the spotlight and probably have a very out-going and loud personality. Or not. That's just a stereotype, of course. Participation in the theatre is something to be very proud of. Whether you have a great voice for musicals, or astounding skills for dramas/comedies; keep up the good work. We need more entertainment these days that isn't television and video games (not that these things are bad, necessarily.)
Musician
Social Nerd
Literature Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Back When I was a Hippy ...

Well, playing Jesus in "Godspell" at any rate.



These pictures snapped by Scott Black. I wonder whatever became of that guy? He was pretty cool. I've done a Google search, but "Scott Black" is a pretty common name, and it doesn't help that Ridley Scott directed a little movie called "Black Hawk Down." I get a lot of "Directed by Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down is ..." returns.

VOTE FOR RED SNAPPER!

Click Here!

Once you're on the webpage, click the "vote" button under Red's picture. Enter your e-mail address, and check your e-mail! (The confirmation e-mail may pop up in your spam filter.) Click the little confirmation link, and your vote has been cast. Now go tell two friends to do the same!





Only the top six get into the competition! Help send Red Snapper to Vegas to dance before what will be her biggest audience yet!

Still doing some housecleaning around here. I'm at the end of my long stale-dated drafts. And I'm ending with what would appear on the face to be an inappropriate subject for Christmas, the Holocaust.

I took a documentary film class earlier this year, and along the way saw many incredible films. I gained insight into the importance of documentary filmmaking; into the profound necessity of consuming documentary film. The following essay treats of this insight.

A Draft from 1/26/08:

On Night and Fog and Shoah

In Night and Fog and Shoah we find two very different approaches to essentially the same material. Resnais' work, Night and Fog, is the shorter of the two works and seems more like a summary view of the Holocaust, taking a broader position to present a more easily digested message. Lanzmann's Shoah is much more pervasive in its attempt to seek out the details of individual memory, presenting a much more nuanced viewpoint overall.

For Resnais, it is important to remember just how quickly something as horrible as the Holocaust can occur. From the very first shot of a picturesque countryside, the camera slowly tracks back revealing barbed wire fencing between us ad the endless, rolling hills. This shot is repeated immediately with another vew of grass piles, pulling back to reveal the fencing. And again with a road that disappears in the distance, kept away from us by electrified fences.

By comparison, Lanzmann shows us the never ending freedom of the countryside, of a lazy brook winding through the trees. When we come to the former death camp itself, all we see are the foundation stones. For Lanzmann, the mere act of remembering seems important for its own sake. Yet the way in which he opens this film seems to indicate how banal cruelty can come to be seen. In Lanzmann's film, it is something that must be remembered for fear of losing it; of actually forgetting the very real history of the Holocaust.

In Night and Fog the memories are important so that we can stay armed against such a thing ever happening again. This is stated rather plainly in the narration towards the end of the film. Also, by showing us in graphic detail the massive toll in terms of lives lost, Resnais drives home this importance. It is almost as if he is saying to us "Behold! This is how bad it can become."

In Shoah we must remember again almost as an end to itself. It's too easy to forget, or at least to bury the past. The second survivor Lanzmann interviews protests remembering the horrors. He insists it's better to smile. Lanzmann continues to insist on answers, until the man opens up. Later, a lady in Auschwitz seems blissfully ignorant of what occurred during the war. Lanzmann again pushes, and she admits that the Auschwitz Jews were exterminated, and she knew it was happening.

For Renais, the responsibility for remembering is on all of us. He shows us the bodies. He details the medical experimentation, the arbitrary cruelty. We see all this with our own eyes. It is seared into our memory in graphic detail.

For Lanzmann, it is the responsibility of those who lived through it to remember it, to tell us about it. This may explain why he does not show any archival footage. The oral transmission of this history is vital, as demonstrated by the interview with one of the survivor's dauughters. (As an interesting side note, there is a Jewish Rabbinical tradition of oral history that is as important as the written word of God in the Torah, Talmud, etc. Perhaps Shoah is an extension of this tradition, in some way.)

It could be argued in both cases that Resnais and Lanmann exploit their subjects. Renais doesn't have the right to show the tortured and mutilated bodies, the ghosts of the Holocaust captured on film. Likewise, Lanzmann is irresponsible in his insistence that these people relive the horrors that they were subject to -- and in some cases contributed to. It could be argued that it is unethical to parade these horrors on screen.

I feel that the importance of understanding and knowing what occurred during the Holocaust outweighs any potential harm a movie could do. In truth, the horrors have already occurred. Documenting these horrors, presenting them so that future generations can possess this history on a personal level is the only possible safeguard against such a massive operation of death and degradation ever occurring again. In the case of Night and Fog, we have those images etched in our memory. In the case of Shoah, we add the oral history to our understanding, and perhaps experience just a bit, the catharsis some of the interview subjects obtain.

I'm doing some housecleaning around here. I have a bunch of saved drafts that I never posted. Well, brace yourself. I'm wrapping up my thoughts and posting them all today.

A Draft from 11/6/08:

Princess Farhana

You never really know someone, until you get to know them. And even then, you become aware of the fact that we’re all just icebergs bobbing along through life, with huge parts of ourselves hidden from casual view. Last night Pamela and I attended the Los Angeles premiere of Underbelly: a Year in the Life of Belly Dancer Princess Farhana.

Pamela and I were introduced to the wild world of belly dance a few months before listing hopelessly towards burlesque. She studied with the oh-so lovely Jamilla, and as “Melita” our favorite troublemaker shimmied and undulated for the patrons of Dar Maghreb. Being the studious autodidact I fell in love with, she naturally consumed any instructional DVD she could find, which is what brought Princess Farhana into our house.

At the same time she was studying this ancient art, Pamela’s pole dance studies were trending towards strip tease, and ultimately burlesque. Princess Farhana was ever-present in this arena as well, her “Cool Moves for Hot Chicks” DVD was put on permanent rotation.

So we had seen Princess Farhana perform on video. It wasn’t until Pamela’s big debut at Stiletto 2.5 that we had the opportunity to see her in person. She performed a couple of numbers that night, a belly dance number and her clown burlesque number.

Speaking for myself here, Farhana is a rock star. She is one of the few performers in the burlesque community who actually makes me star struck. At the same time, Farhana seems incredibly approachable. This will sound weird to all but those who know him, but she reminds me of my father-in-law: Larger than life, salt of the earth. She's the kind of person who fills a room just by being in it, either in person or via anecdote, and everyone who knows her has a Princess Farhana anecdote.

If you dig documentaries as much as Pamela and I do, check out Underbelly! Even if you don't like documentaries, this one will convert you. It's a loving portrait of an inspiring hell-raiser.

All I Want for Christmas ...

From TheRaider.net:

Speaking with TheForce.Cast, animation legend Paul Dini, who not only was the genius behind so many of the great Warner Brothers cartoons over the past 30 years from Batman to Pinky and the Brain, talked about Indiana Jones.

Paul Dini was a producer on Batman: The Animated Series. You may remember this series as "The Coolest Thing Ever Done With the Batman Franchise Before Christopher Nolan". Here's a reminder:

The series drew heavy inspiration from the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 1940s.

I also recall reading somewhere that the artists started with black paper, instead of white, and cut into the darkness with color to make these wonderfully dark and shadowy images:

Dini would like to create an Indiana Jones animated series or feature in the same Fleischer-esque style. As Harry Knowles points out on Aint it Cool, many of the old Superman cartoons are in the vein of an Indiana Jones adventure:

Pretty nifty, huh? Aside from the racial stereotypes, of course. But doesn't this screengrab look right out of Temple of Doom?

That darn Lois Lane, always getting into trouble.

The Fleischer Superman cartoons were not very talky. The action sequences were long and well thought out. This could work! But what would it look like?

We can get an idea, by looking at the artwork of Eric Tam. Tam creates art posters with a 1920s "UFA" look. UFA was the German film studio that launched Expressionism as a film style. It's easy to see the influence of expressionism on the Fleischer cartoons above.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari:

Metropolis:

Expressionism molted into film noir thanks to German filmmakers like Fritz Lang. Film noir was a further influence on the Fleischers and Batman: The Animated Series. I bring all of this up because Eric Tam created a couple of UFA-inspired posters for the first two Indy movies:

You have to put all of this together in your mental blender ...

... but I believe you will agree, what Dini is proposing would be nothing short of sensational. And Dini is in a position to make it happen; he's involved in The Clone Wars animated feature. So he's in the Lucasfilm loop.

Buzz, fellow Indy fans, buzz. The more we demand it, the more likely we are to fork over good money for it, the more likely George Lucas is to do it. After Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I think we can all agree: Indy deserves better, and so do we, the fans!