The Melting Watchtowre

"You mean an early clue to the new direction?"

2012-02-13T01:07:00.000-08:00

More chatter to get people to distance from you:

Pixar films are going to animate classics from Russian literature. First up: Tolstoy Story.

The candy favourite among masochists is S & M & Ms.

Among painters, the Impressionists are not my favourites. None of them can do a decent Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson.

Comparing the S.S. to the C.I.A., I find Gestapo men (and women) were better dressed.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes with a fiber shortage are sometimes called the Baker Street Irregulars.

A curse of getting older is having more chins than a Chinese phonebook.

The Eskimos have only made one porno film. It's called Deep Nose.

An early case of depression prompted suicide by slashing my wrists. However an innate fear of razor blades made my attempt with a Lady Schick futile.

My parents dismissed my belief that I had been adopted. Why then on the back of my birth certificate did it say "printed at Knott's Berry Farm?"

Porsche is considering a new off road vehicle: The Karl Land Rover.

When the Venus de Milo was sexually assaulted by a man in 1776, the charge was statutory rape.

Lord Byron was a private member of the Club Foot.

Have you read the new biography, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Vacuum? It sucks.

Does Putin have a rasp?

Mickey Mouse always wears gloves so he never leaves prints.

Bugs Bunny was cinema's biggest transvestite.

If Joseph Cotten had married Slim Pickens...Well, you can see where that's going, can't you?

(Promotional consideration by Soyltine Crackers, the People's Food. Try New Soyltine Lite. 50% Fat Person Free.)

"You don't see many of these nowadays, do you?"

2012-02-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

Cocktail Conversation (and How to Put an End to It Immediately):

Did you see that picture of Mitt Romney and his family on the Sunday Parade Magazine? I thought it was an ad for HBO's Big Love.

The estate of Aldous Huxley and Home Depot are promoting a new line of housing improvements. First out are The Sliding Glass Partitions of Higher Consciousness and The Windows of Awareness.

I had a dream about you last night, but unfortunately I slept through most of it.

You haven't lived until you've heard Henry Kissinger's rendition of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side.

Zamfir was once a member of Joy Division.

Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit has been updated and is called No Off Ramp.

A new science fiction series about a world run by interior decorators is coming out. It's called Planet of the Drapes.

How many angels can give head on a pin?

Slim Fast announces product that can turn thick bricks thin.

Typographical error turned silent film star great Lon Chaney into the Man of a Thousand Feces.

Huey Lewis recording song for toupee replacement company. Title: I Want A New Rug.

Rejected pilot for spy series featuring Victorian foot fetishists. The Man from A.N.K.L.E.

When Catherine Coulter drinks tomato juice, she looks like a thermometer.

The Blue Nun, Blue Man Group and the Smurfs have all dropped Blue Cheer.

Piers Morgan and Pierce Brosnan both have Pierced Nipples.

Carl Jung once said after trying absinthe..."If you are bi-sexual, psychopathic and schizophrenic, than you are a bi-psycho built for two."

A new coffee shop called Deja Vu was soon to open in Santa Barbara. When asked if I was going, I replied, "No, I've already been there."

"Navigator to heaven."

2012-01-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

"Could we get much higher?"

Eight floors and rising. 100th entry. Space Pirate Radio anniversary time and I'm beginning to feel the alternating energy. The Chinoise Vaudevillians, Yin and Yang. Three shows daily. 3, 5 and 8pm. "And give up Showbiz?"

But I digress...

Zounds! By Zeus's mighty Gonads (Doctor Zeus, author of Groin Legs and Gams)! Can we be nearing up to what would be Space Pirate Radio's 38th anniversary? All in a blink of a thigh.

Well, here in the Home for Aged Surrealists, I have to say, with no false modesty (BLAZE!), after all this time, I'm pretty darned proud of the show. Oh, sure, it was a misspent life, nothing lost there...but hey! It lasted longer than most parties. And I'm not embarrassed to admitting being the last one to leave.

Also, if we believe at least 53% of what's been written elsewhere, I wasn't the only person having a good time. It seems everyone liked the music. Most guests enjoyed the party jokes. All attendees seemed very cordial and engaging with the host, at least while they were inside the building. Outside may be a different story. But then, it can be very different when you are outside.

But back inside, to the party. The music was good, wasn't it?

One of the reasons I know this party was a success is the continuing number of attendees who ask me what was the song playing at a certain time of the festivities. Since this Space Party Radio was an all-nighter, starting from early 1974 till mid 2002, people came and went at all hours. I'm surprised the coat and hat check girls could keep up.

Early arrivals to the gathering heard strange new stuff, but later folks were exposed to the next progressions. This DOES NOT mean that the first audios of '74-'79 were forsaken for the newer stuff. On the contrary. It was important to keep the mix alive and show how the early experimentations had influenced the next wave of musos. Some party-poopers of '79 left the gig too early to observe this growth. No loss. They would try and tell you they catered the party in the first place. How quickly one can forget who sent out the first invitations.

Anyway, it was my party and I thank all those who came. Sometimes the music was too loud (Amon Duul 2 - Mozambique), too soft (Steve Roach - Quiet Music), too retro (Les Baxter - Carribean Moonlight), too odd (Faust - So Far), too comical (Bonzo Dog Band - Hello Mabel), too Japanese (Sadistic Mika Band - Mummy Doesn't Go to Parties Since Daddy Died), too Italian (Banco del Mutuo Soccorso - Io Sono Nato Libero), too classical (Third Ear Band - Alchemy), too French (Ange - Au-Dela du Delire), too folky (Fairport Convention - Matty Groves), too French folky (Malicorne - Le Bestiaire), too odd (Pink Floyd - Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast), too uptempo (Re-flex - The Politics of Dancing), too downtempo (Heldon - III). Too too tootsie, goodbye!

"Could we get much lighter?"

"It's based on a novel by a man named Lear."

2012-01-21T00:50:00.000-08:00

Thinking about Vaclav Havel's death on December 18th, 2011, reminded me of my first introduction to the man's work in 1968.

After being disillusioned with my senior year at John A. Rowland High School, Rowland Heights, California, this once enthusiastic, can't wait for college life misfit, arrived for duty at the humble Mount San Antonio College, in Walnut of the same state of the union, if not of the same state of mind. It wasn't a bad campus. It was just me. I was tired from battles over dress code from gender confused principals and macho PE coaches. Now in an environment that should have been nurturing, I felt numb. I hated all the classes except English, Speech and Drama.

The Drama Department and Theatre were located in the front of the school, rather to the left (naturally), somewhat raised and landscaped. This was my refuge. The Green Room was large (much larger than the closet that was Santa Barbara City College's). Everyone smoked. If you were an ACTOR, you smoked. And the more ECCENTRIC your smoking choices, the better impression you made, darling! French cigarettes, Egyptian cigarettes, English Ovals, coloured papers, Virginia Slims or Eves FOR THE BOYS! Marlboro Menthols (hard to find at that time...you had to drive to a Safeway store in El Monte to get a carton), Mapletons (which had maple flavoured pipe tobacco in them--harsh, not for wimps or anyone who wished for normal breathing after consumption).

The Green Room. A nice place to lounge and smoke and pose and probe. A salon for suburban Gertrude Stein babies. Not exactly the Algonquin Table. More the Foot Stool. But still, a bunker from the outer world.

Most of us were unaware at the time of how progressive the Mt. SAC Drama Department was. I had fallen under the spell of the department during my senior year at high school. Our drama department had been invited to see their production of Ondine. I observed the various performers onstage and afterwards off. Many of these 'older theatricals' would become dear friends the following year. After that initial show, under the direction or production of Drama chief Carter Doran, the department would do works of Bertolt Brecht and Arthur Miller.

In high school, I foolishly thought myself the top thespian. Always the lead, turning parts down. But at SAC, I didn't get my pick at the parts. I auditioned for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, fully confident that my flawless English accent--the accent that got me a job on FM radio--would serve up either of the leads. As Bluebottle would say, "Not a sausage." Of course, I'm sure I was lazy, undisciplined and probably a smartass at the time, if not still...so.

My second audition for Carter Doran was more fortuitous. He was excited to be bringing to the stage the West Coast Premiere of an obscure new Czech play called The Memorandum.

This new play was Havel's Franz Kafka meets Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows satire of a totalitarian corporate world, trying to instill a single, emotion free language, to the confusion of an Everyman employee. It was Havel's rage against Communist interference and early Nazi echoes.

I wonder if Terry Gilliam read or saw this play before doing Brazil.

Carter Doran had decided on doing a somewhat gender bending interpretation of the work. All the jackboot types were made to look like the current wave of dandy-clothed, neo-hipsters. Long haired, lace wearing, lovers of lunch. Armed with forks and knives. The radical was the confused, drab looking common man of the Fifties variety.

The new, single language of the industrial future was called Ptydepe. And I was it's instructor, Lear. My Brian Jones-like haircut, John Lennon wire frame glasses and ease in a comfort for wearing lace sleeved shirts, got me the part.

Unfortunately, Carter Doran's enthusiasm for the play was considerably dampened when he discovered his West Coast premiere of the work was going to be eclipsed by a production opening sooner at LA City College. I believe I may have discovered this information and had to break the news to him. This also may have changed his interpretation as rehearsals continued. Among the ironies, the LACC production was directed by Dr. Pope Freeman, the man who would later take the reins of Santa Barbara City College's drama department from Max Whittaker, and the Alhecama Players at the Lobero Theatre.

Carter Doran's production was a good one and I was happy to do a more progressive theatre work than the Kaufman & Hart plays I had done in high school and with the Diamond Bar Players. Even though I wasn't fully aware at the time of Havel's dissident activities, the play's political tone moved me to my next involvement in Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade at Cal State Fullerton.

During this time, I got to know Carter Doran better than my first days at Mt. Anxiety College (as I called it on Space Pirate Radio, located not far from the Green Neon Motel). He would be trumped a second time by Pope Freeman, after he applied for the position of SBCC's Drama Head.

Years after I had moved to Santa Barbara, I accidentally met him line at the Roxy Theatre where we were going to see the original Hollywood stage production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We stayed in touch until his passing. I liked him. No disrespect to Pope Freeman, who I worked with quite a bit, pictured here before on Man of La Mancha and the TV show Crackers at Eight...but I wonder how the Santa Barbara Theatre scene would have been if Doran had been given the gig.

As to Vaclav Havel, I'm not sure. A radical at the beginning. Hated the oppressive Communist regime. Loved long haired Rock. Hippie Radicals are loved in the West as long as they hate challengers to the free market. Put them at Kent State or Occupy Wall Street...anarchy! When Havel came to the U.S. and met the Chairman of the Board: "God Bless...President Bush" or something very close, he rejoiced. I cringed. Trading in the KGB for the former head of the CIA. Oh, my.

Havel smoked a lot. Supposedly he died from this. His hero, Frank Zappa, smoked a lot. Supposedly he died from this also.

I quit smoking in 1974. Don't hang around in Green Rooms anymore. I do miss the furniture. And quite a number of friends.

Still, just to be sure...check all credentials at the door.

"It's been real."

2012-01-13T01:16:00.000-08:00

Friday the 13th, 2012. I've been thinking a lot about this unlucky day for the past 2 weeks. As I get in the frame of mind of Space Pirate Radio anniversary time, my mood has recently been nostalgic for the classic satire that inspired me. In early 2011, I bought myself the Ernie Kovacs Collection; the six dvd collection of nearly lost, mostly never seen Kovacs comedy of Ernie's from the Fifties. As a comedy innovator and surrealist, Ernie probably had the second closest impact on my hyper perceptive youth. First would be Mad Magazine. So as an influence on my mindset and later work, I would have to call this unit a collective. The vision of Harvey Kurtzman, along with William Gaines and Al Feldstein. The artists who had the cosmic effect of being psychedelicized without one realizing it: Will Elder, Frank Kelly Freas, Wally Wood, Norman Mingo, Basil Wolverton, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis and Al Jaffee. The writers. Every electric bulb in the pack.

And that, on occasion, included Ernie Kovacs. So back to the date at hand. It boggles der mind that 50 years ago today, Ernie Kovacs was killed driving his Corvair into a pole on a wet Mulholland Drive after a late night poker party. I remember seeing the photo in the Los Angeles newspaper, Ernie dead, crumpled out the driver's side.

A little too much for a kid still in Junior High. All I knew was that this cigar smoking man with the moustache did the most insane things with sound and vision. I lived for those monthly Ernie Kovacs specials on ABC-TV. They came on late. 9:30pm or 10 on a weeknight, and I had to beg or plead to stay up. I was hooked. I had to hear Mack the Knife, see the oscilloscope and watch the magic lunacy. The Fourth Wall fell down, literally...and Anything was Possible.

If I ever had any thoughts about entering the priesthood, watching Ernie Kovacs changed that forever.

"Come in and warm youself by this roaring candle."

2011-12-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

Stuck for holiday gift ideas? Maybe I can help.

What do you get for the man who has everything? A box to put it all in. Or...

A home vasectomy kit, which doubles as an office stapler.

A nouvelle vague Eastern Smoking Accessories Set. Also known as New Wave Hookahs.

Retro gifts from Fashion State, including the Elite Gonad Reducer ("If you've GOT IT, GET RID OF IT!"). Vintage sets include Electric Wrist Clamp with Automatic Limper.

A weekend retreat at Ma & Kettle's Spa on the Farm. Yak sperm facials and monkey knee injections highly recommended. Feel truly cleansed with the Bo Tox Derek High Powered Colonic Infusion. Located North of San Diego in Cognito, California.

Holiday music? How about a download or just unloading some from GuyTunes? The premiere music service, long before Crapple, features the best of the festive season. Bing Crosby singing "You're Beginning to Feel a Belt on Christmas." Inebriated holiday party goers think this song is an ode to a full octane egg nog, but abused children know better.

Or always my favourite: "Chet's Nuts Roasting by an Open Fire" ("...Jack Frost's nipple in your ear..."). This Classic Christmas song from the early fifties is the only recorded noel for nudists. Speculation over the Naturist's identity, warming his nutsack in front of the hearth, have included Chet Atkins, Chet Baker and Chet Huntley.

The literary minded? How about something special for the connoisseur? If you're buying for Dick Cheney, forget it. He already has the Babylon Scrolls. But how about a copy of Vladamir Nabokov's little known script for Sesame Street? Briefly pitched as Elmo Reads Lolita, this text features Humbert Humbert and Ernie.

Perhaps even rarer is the manuscript for Tarzan and the Naked Lunch by Edgar Rice William S. Burroughs, Siamese twin authors, separated at the wallet.

Sample text: "I've GOT a MONKEY on my back!" Tarzan screamed. "And it's NOT CHEETAH!"

I can hear the hum...BUG!

"And are there two G's in Bugger Off!?"

Happy Christmas from the Pagan Scientist.

"I have nothing to worry about. Except Ken Russell."

2011-12-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

It was early Monday morning (what would have been SPR time), on the computer, answering a letter to my friend David Fontana, when I clicked on the IMDB page and saw the news "Ken Russell dead at 84." Four hours ago...

Surprise and sadness to see that this person who had influenced my antenna was gone. My last blog, "Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3," had included him in the Fantastic Five: Fellini, Bunuel, Antonioni, himself and Roeg--now the only remaining name on the fungfmeisters.

Russell and Roeg were major early influences on my Seventies mindset, and even earlier with Ken. I saw his BBC Isadora Duncan biography on PBS on initial airing, probably before I saw Cammel and Roeg's Performance. Billion Dollar Brain, the third Michael Caine Harry Palmer espionage film, I saw in a Westwood theatre. I dug Women in Love and The Music Lovers, but The Devils blew me away. For over a decade I thought The Devils and Performance were the two best films I had seen. I would debate with film students from UCSB that Russell and Roeg were in the calibre of Fellini and Bunuel. They snickered at me as if I had said Russ Meyer was as good as Eisenstein.

I loved Ken Russell because he embraced being both intelligent and outrageous. Like the Goons (he had done a BBC piece on Spike Milligan, Portrait of a Goon, which I still haven't seen), Ken was smart, silly and surreal. And sexy.

Russell popped up in my stuff all the time. My short play, Void in Wisconsin, seems like Russell meets Kovacs with Zappa's 200 Motels. On Space Pirate Radio, Ken Russell and Federico Fellini wrestled in a pre-Monty Python bit for the title of Most Surrealist Director. And in the play Casanova's Lips, a pre-Amadeus Mozart shows up at a seance, worried only that Ken Russell might film his life story.

I never met Ken Russell but I met a lot of people who had worked with him. Georgina Hale and Glenda Jackson in London. Amanda Donohoe in Santa Barbara. My wife has met Kenneth Colley in her Star Wars universe. Most of these actors have worked with Russell and Roeg, and often.

When Space Pirate Radio co-promoted a Rick Wakeman concert in Ventura, the wife and I plus friends had a lovely chat with the man post-show. Wakeman's involvement with the man in Lizstomania was a first question, having done double duty as actor and composer.

Ironically, I purchased not far back, the Ken Russell BBC Collection, released only in the States. I rewatched the Isadora Duncan one and saw for the first time, the Debussy biopic with Oliver Reed. Rossetti, Delius, Elgar and Rousseau still call out. And not too long ago, I bought the Warners Archive release of Savage Messiah. Like Orson Welles, he's not long out of radar.

And did I say Ken Russell's films are sexy? Very sexy. And scandalous. Pan-Sexual. He got Richard Chamberlain out of the closet with the Music Lovers and a smashing performance. He brought Oscar Wilde back to film. Louis XIII says in The Devils, "Women. Some men love them." And oh, how we loved those women.

Talking to Georgina Hale in her dressing room (her wearing an amazing dressing gown that I'm sure was designed by Ken's wife, costumer Shirley Russell), did I ever go into Third Person and realize this was that outrageously daring, powderfaced nymphet from The Devils, the woman who danced naked with a classic phonograph player, fondled by SS Gestapo men on Gustav Mahler's coffin? Or Amanda Donohoe (pictured) being the vampiric snake woman, biting into the intimate bits of a young boy scout in Lair of the White Worm? She would rejoin Ken again in his version of D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.

Glenda Jackson, Labour Member of Parliament, writhing nude on a train to a horrified Tchaikovsky? Helen Mirren as Nude Descending Staircase in Savage Messiah? Twiggy in The Boyfriend? Twiggy and her boyfriend in The Devils? The Devil and her boyfriend in Twiggy? Sorry, seized by a moment of Russellmania. How about Ann Margaret in an orgy of baked beans, a flood of fecal fiber in Tommy?

Rest in Peace, Ken Russell. I would have loved to thank you in person for all the passion, philosophy, photography and pinching at the petticoats of the petite bourgeoisie. Much appreciated.

And I'm sure you hated it all. How a great work by Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon, that JFK conspiracy of 17th Century France, and the play adapted from it, which was the basis of your most important film...

That from all of this would come the genre known as Nunsploitation. From the solitude of my monastic cell, I salute you.

Bye, Bye Blackbird.

"For his sake, I hope he lives forever."

"Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3."

2011-11-25T00:14:00.000-08:00

My wife and friend of over 14 years.
Mad Magazine 1956-1959.
Cats.
Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn and Incantations by Mike Oldfield.
Harry Secombe's laugh.
Legs and Mini-skirts.
Local Hero and Comfort and Joy.
Jacques Tati.
Body Love by Klaus Schulze (both albums).
The Cosmic Giggle and repeatedly Getting Away With It.
Surrealism.
Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, John Neville, Christopher Plummer and Jeremy Brett, making one feel at Holmes.
Gothic literature.

The ladies I have had the pleasure of knowing: Ex-lovers, a number; Ex-friends, some; Ex-wives, none.
Danse Sacree et Profane by Claude Debussy.
Barbara Steele in Black Sunday.
Raquel Welch.
An oscilloscope, Mack the Knife and Ernie Kovacs.
Birds.
Bel Air by Can.
Candles.
Altair-4, for outside appearances can be deceiving.
Klaatu and Eros...same purpose, different methods (Klaatu had Gort, but Eros had Tana).
Turhan Bey's voice.
Orson Welles selling peas.
Atem by Tangerine Dream.
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir.
The humble potato in any form...baked, mashed, hashed, fried and totted.
WINE...the WINE, oh the WINE (and all the GOOD results that come from it).
Sandalwood incense.
Jean Shrimpton.
Chaplin, Keaton and Groucho.
Rabbits.
The music of Basil Kirchin.
The Doctor's Companions.
Shag haircuts...in fact all haircuts, especially long ones, but short ones work too, girls preferred, but yes...hair it if you got it.
Echoes by Pink Floyd.
Della Street.
Mr. Lucky by Henry Mancini.
Jane Asher and Marianne Faithfull.
Nederlander Dance Theatre.
Isadora Duncan.
Is My Face on Straight? by Premiata Forneria Marconi.
Chef Bruno Languini.
Cheese.
Avec Frommage.
Emmanuelle 2, The Joys of a Woman.
Spike Milligna, the famous typing error.
"I Resign."
Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ken Russell & Nicolas Roeg--The Fantastic Five!
Roger Moore as The Saint.
Tomatoes.
Turtles.
All creatures great and small.
Alcool.
Toulouse-Lautrec.
Judy Geeson, Sally Geeson and Eva Aulin.
When the pain is gone, like now.
The steamy stuff.
Midi-minuit fantastique.
George Sanders.
"What, Me Worry?"
Raccoons that will eat out of your hand.
Lolita Ya-Ya.
Inventions for Electric Guitar by Ash Ra Tempel.
Margo Lane.
The art of Will Elder.
Twiggy.
Playboy, 1964-1974
Peter Sellers in The Battle of the Sexes.
Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet.
Yoda in exile, Trotsky in exile.
In Den Garten Pharoas by Popol Vuh.
Nastassja Kinski.
Senor Wences.
The Isle of Everywhere by Gong.
The Uninvited, 1944.
Go-Go Girls, from Shindig and Hullaballoo to Musikladen.
Happy to be me, appreciating you, glad we are not one of them.

"Inarticulate."

2011-11-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

"...And you'd like to be the sort of person who can use words like inarticulate?"

On Space Pirate Radio, I am proud (humbly) to have introduced German imported experimental music to commercial radio. The German hipsters, inspired by Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane and all things electronic, ethnic, eastern and eclectic. When this peculiar, non-American rock began to be noticed by Westerners, the uninspired needed a label for it.

I am pleased that in my entire history of broadcasting, I NEVER ONCE called this genre KRAUTROCK. The term, then and now, makes me sick to my stomach. This hideous description was created by the clueless cretins who had NO IDEA what the German Experimental Music Scene was all about. Just a lump all name for something that inarticulate xenophobes used to brand music that didn't have English lyrics some of the time, and was performed by possible Aryan types from the Deutsche Republic.

Progressive? As progressive as calling Blues and Jazz, Post Modern Minstrel Music. That's N-tertainment, in a Word. Arschloches!

And while we're at it, how about Italian progressive? Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and Premiata Forneria Marconi. Shouldn't we put a sticker on their LPs? WOPMUSIC. "Wop, wop, wop muzik! Everybody talking about...Wop Muzik!"

Granada and Triana from Spain? SPICROCK?

Sadistic Mika Band and Yellow Magic Orchestra? NIPROCK, of course.

Ange, Atoll, Heldon and Malicorne from France? FROGROCK? How about FROGRESSIVE MUSIC? Magma would have to be FROGFUSION. ("What we got here is a Ball of Frogfusion.")

I admit I'm going off on a rant here ("A FINE ride for the cranky"), but I feel focused and justified. I HATE LABELS. They are the cliff notes of the uninspired. When you are in the realm of something new, it doesn't have to be indexed immediately. Only LATECOMERS to the party need a description, and then ALMOST ALWAYS for marketing purposes only. "I don't know what you've got here Boy, but HERE'S how we'll sell it."

Anyway... KRAUTROCK, the term offends me. And don't even GET me started on the label New Age Music! Excitement over something new can be quickly neutered by a dull description--a philosophical ethnic slur. People who cry "MURDER!" can be dismissed as "conspiracy BUFFS." Rebels become Patriots. Allies become Terrorists. How quickly a feeling can be changed by a turn of phrase. Or a belief altered in a brand name.

So to all of the German artists I introduced on Space Pirate Radio, including...Amon Duul (1 AND 2), Tangerine Dream, Can, Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Popul Vuh, Faust, Cluster with a C and Kluster with a K, Neu, Harmonia, La Dusseldorf, Guru Guru, Floh de Cologne, Eloy, Jane, Embryo, Niagara, Klaus Schulze, Scorpions, Novalis, Deuter, Al Gromer Khan, 18 Karat Gold, SFF, Michael Hoenig, Nina Hagen, Gina X Performance, Eroc, Grobschnitt, Sweet Smoke, Eberhard Schoener (with a pre-Police Sting and Andy Summers), Cosmic Jokers, Walter Wegmuller, Peter Michael Hamel, Propaganda, Thomas Fehlmann, Einsturzende Neubauten, Mouse On Mars, etc., etc., my apologies. For the shortsighted, unenlightened Westerners, clueless, tuneless and full of fear, when the space for knowledge is empty, but the tummy must feel full.

Did any German folks buy American music filed under YANKROCK? How about WANKROCK?

Zen Question: "What is the sound of one hand wanking?"

Yoda Guy sez: "I will just go back to the music. The sounds are always individual and open to interpretation. They're filed under... "

"I can hear the hum."

2011-11-18T00:41:00.000-08:00

I recently watched Magic Trip, Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place. After the recent viewing of the acid drenched Skidoo, I'm seeing trails, man. It's been the 24 Hour Technicolour Trip.

Flashback...! (Is it Chris Karrer's voice or Lothar Meid saying that?)

As I said in the previous entry, a lot of straight looking people were dropping acid courtesy of the medical profession during the early Sixties. They didn't look like the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers or Syd Barrett's Madcap yet. A book could be written about the slick Vaseline hair groomed Madison Avenue types who were Madder than they appeared. The ties hadn't come off to be replaced by Nehru jackets and love beads. Wait a while kittens. Sammy Davis Jr. will be the first Rat Packer to change his wardrobe.

1968 and it's like the Pep Boys meets your high school gym coach: "Turn on, tune up and drop for ten!"

This seems like an ongoing series in the psychedelic experience. Southern California and this NEW STUFF is floating around Orange County. Tab acid. Made in someone's tub in Huntington Beach. Orange Wedge. What the...? "Cut with strychnine." "Too much Speed." Double What the? Kilo What the? Kids in Pomona and Covina weren't as Experienced yet. They were taking mini-whites with Old English 800 and heading to the drive-in. Spirits of the Dead with Terence Stamp and Jane Fonda, or Two Gentlemen Sharing with Judy Geeson. Always movies from American International.

So let us slow down and ponder this awakening to the new colour vibe. This better living through chemistry? Cube, tab, pyramid, blotter. Liquid or Salvo, like you used to put in your washing machine? Being an innocent bystander, I never saw most of this. Tab may have been in the fridge. And there were Pyramids on the wall. But cubes and blotter, never.

If I HAD been like Doctor Hoffman, hypo-thetically speaking of course. AND ONE FELT COMPELLED to consult with the ly-surgeons, it would seem ESSENTIAL to have the PERFECT environment to conduct such experiments into higher consciousness.

These could include:

a) an all-nighter before going in for your military draft physical.

b) driving on a freeway in Anaheim, seeing an orange glow in the fog, initially thinking it's a fire, calmly reassuring yourself that it's only the light from the neon sign, only to drive by and see a residential home on fire, being first on the scene 'cause it's after 3 AM.

c) in bed, pillows, curtains, candles, incense, naked girlfriend, feeling you died and this must be heaven.

d) in bed, pillows, curtains, candles, incense, naked girlfriend, seeing orange glow outside window, thinking it's only the light from neon sign, realizing there IS NO neon sign outside, seeing van on fire in driveway.

e) watching appropriately spiritual/sensitive movie in Hollywood like Raw Meat with Donald Pleasence and Christopher Lee dealing with tormented survivor zombies in London Tube.

f) listening to cool imported space music on Sunday night/Monday morning radio.

g) actually playing cool imported space music on Sunday night/Monday morning radio.

Epilogue that is really a prologue:

In retrospect, Mercury in Libra kicking in folks, I think my generation could be considered quite insane to have experimented with something born of the straight world, controlled by the military, created in effect to control human behaviour. What were we thinking? At the beginning, much less than would be acquired. We were reacting, much more. Reacting against the social controls. Breaking the bonds FELT GOOD. It DID feel good. "What's so bad about feeling good?" The question for me is, did we take those feelings and transform them into collective freedoms? Overall, I think not. I think at least 80 per cent of us can still identify with those wire implanted mice, questioning whether they want to cross the electrified grill and hit that switch to give them the brain pain reliever. The other 20 per cent own stock in the electric company.

So...

Memories of an orange wedge that came from Orange County which later became an orange glow, from the orange glass that held the candle, while playing Wendy Carlos A Clockwork Orange or Pink Floyd Apples and Oranges.

I hate the electric company, but orange you glad that the power's still on?

"Plenty of jam jars, baby."

2011-11-15T00:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, Senator. I admit it. I AM a Marxist! Groucho, that is.

I recently bought Skidoo, the infamous psychedelic filmic disaster from director Otto Preminger. Featuring the last film appearance of Groucho and a gallery of Hollywood greats caught up in a 1968 car crash of Catskill meets capsule humour. Infamous for a time because of the conflicting tones of Ed Sullivan presents Hair, this cult item was long kept in the vaults. Watching Jackie Gleeson trip out on acid, as well as three villains from the old Batman TV series: Burgess Meredith, Caesar Romero and Frank Gorshin. Plus Mickey Rooney and fellow birthday boy Frankie Avalon being seduced by a nymphomaniac Carol Channing. Mondo bizarre.

Anyway, Groucho plays a character named God. And supposedly he dropped acid to be in tune with the kids. Not that LSD was sole property of the Now Generation. It seems it was used rather extensively by the Then Generation. Cary Grant. Gig Young. More pretty leading men than Middle America would have cared to known were taking the stuff "by Doctor's Authorization." I watch actors from the late Fifties and especially the early Sixties and see window pane eyes in those method performances. Hollywood High is not just a school.

But back to Groucho...

Very trippy in the film. Seeing him with a beautiful, half naked, African-American, super tall, runway model type, dressed in a total back to butt cleavage exposed gown. Far out. And further out as a yogi type, smoking a joint on a peace/love bedecked sailboat. From Margaret Dumont to Marilyn Monroe to Carmen Miranda to Jayne Mansfield. And now this. Baggy pants, indeed.

There were 5 Marx Brothers, later 4. And then there were 3. Like the Goons, first 4 and known as 3. Thank Krishna the Beatles were 4. Many claimed to be number 5. "Who is number 1?" You ARE...number 6!"

But back to Groucho...

Supposedly after Richard Nixon lost the Governor's race in California, he moved to a home on Groucho's street in Hollywood. "Isn't it terrible?" a neighbour asked Groucho, about their new arrival. "Well, better here than in Washington," was his reported reply.

I once interviewed Bud Cort, half the star of Harold and Maude. He lived in Groucho's home for a time. That seems pretty surreal to me. Like Kato Kaelin living on O.J. Simpson's property. Or Truman Capote living with Johnny Carson's ex-wife. I asked Bud more about his friendship with another psychedelisized leading actor, Peter Sellers. But high times seemed a constant with both comedians.

The closest I came to Groucho was in 1975. I was in Westwood Village with my girlfriend at the time, seeing an early show of the just released Woody Allen film, Love and Death. Staying after the credits ended, house lights up, we lingered discussing the merits of the film. It sort of dawned on me that people were not entering the theatre for the next showing. This was odd because at that time, intermissions between showings were very short. It was then that we discovered that the theatre managers had held back the next audience in order to escort Groucho Marx and his lady companion to the row behind us. "Oh my God, it's Groucho!" Wearing his checkered tami or beret or cap, we smiled, nodded a silent greeting and left the theatre.

Outside, the patrons were queued up to be let in. Strangely, and this is true...there were young men dressed up as Groucho waiting to get in. Like a pre-Star Wars thing, I was never sure if they were fans, groupies or just a coincidence.

Or maybe it was the acid. I wasn't tripping, but I can't vouch for the rest of the cast.

"He walked with a pronounced limp. L-I-M-P. Pronounced LIMP."

2011-11-14T17:48:00.000-08:00

The 1970's. Still in pursuit of the Cosmic Giggle. Working, if you can call it that, at freeform wireless station KTYD in Santa Barbara. No one has grown up yet. That perversion won't begin till late 1980 and the murder of John Lennon. For the time being, the children have STILL taken over the daycare center.

The steam madness of KTYD radio was a place where business as Unusual was the modus operandi. How cool is that? You turned your jokes into art, and art became commerce. Simply because people bought what you were selling if...you GAVE it away first! And most of all...if they actually could tell that you loved and believed what you were doing. You can feel this LOVE VIBE at Verizon, Chevron, B of A and News Corporation today, can't you Children of the Revolution? Especially at Fox. Those brown shirts smell Downey fresh!

So for a brief time, the work ethic was Labours of Love. If you thought it was good, do something with it. That would creep in with the creeps later, but I am really trying to hold back my kitchen cynic mode and accentuate the positive.

And that Cosmic Giggle.

The station was always involved in local artistic endeavours: concerts, film shows, plays and art events. We still thought of Santa Barbara as a community. Not just the playground of the wealthy, or a place where bodies from the San Fernando Valley or Orange County could be conveniently dumped over the Mesa Cliffs. No sir. A real community of multi-talented artists. That's what made freeform KTYD the place EVERYONE tuned into. Rock? Every variety. Jazz. Man, the station was a hipster's paradise! Blues? The BLUEST! Folk? You bet. American or British? Joan Baez or Fairport Convention? Space Pirate Radio was there, bringing Gentle Giant to the Arlington Theatre, Renaissance to UCSB, Alan Stivell to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The station's list of musical guests is amazing. Almost endless, really.

And cinema?

Santa Barbara in the Seventies was a movie lover's paradise. One local promoter would do triple bills of eclectic offerings at the Arlington Theatre. In an age when seeing a film was not yet a convenient home viewing experience, the film lover was desperate for a sympathetic venue. If there was a film I hadn't seen or wished to view a lost favourite, we simply booked it into a local theatre. Pink Floyd films, like in Pompeii or More or La Vallee or Stamping Ground or Zabriskie Point...these would show up at a Midnight Double bill with Yes in Concert at the Airport Drive-In (pictured in a previous entry). But more likely in Isla Vista at the Magic Lantern Theatre. This WAS the cool theatre. Two theatres actually, with the mini left wing smaller cavern on the opposite side of the snack bar. Called Midnight Flicks, flyers were printed for each weekend's offering. We snickered when the artist would put the L and the I rather close and the Kinkos copies would blend. Suddenly a different event was being advertised.

It's movie night at the Chateau.

"Because I'm in no condition to receive bad news."

2011-11-07T23:15:00.000-08:00

Inside every elderly person is a juvenile delinquent crying out to be set free. The dreaming creature inside this mortal coil is a spirit filled with an amount of experience, sometimes called wisdom, wishing to have the vitality of younger foolish days, hoping to find a balance of the two. Alas, it is not to be. It is a rare moment when Goethe can engage in pure philosophy, yet still have the power of thrust to engage in a three-way. (If you smoke after a three-way, do you call a cig-alert?)

Older people are like out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Tiny midgets of mirth trapped in barely walking corpses of curve. But in true English tradition, we Carry On, Regardless. The youngins laugh. Pathetic geezers. Quite clueless. Logan's Run. "Your hand crystal has changed colour." This is why people over 40 don't commit mass suicide. And why I don't own a cellphone.

But first, your local weather...

Cloddy. Partially cloddy. Obscured by Clods. Clods in way. Can you see me now? Highs tonight...hopefully. Otherwise, more of the same with a chance of something. Early morning stuff, but that should change later. And now a word from our sponsor:
Bongos (when one bongo is not enough).

When you're young and stupid enough to think you're an actor, playing OLD seems a lark. Twentysomethings love to pretend to be sixty. Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten in Citizen Kane. Peter Sellers in The Smallest Show on Earth or better yet, in The Battle of the Sexes. I played a fat old man of the cloth in Abelard and Heloise in college (pictured). People said, "Oh look, they got an older adult to play with these college students." Should I be flattered or seriously depressed? Probably both. Actually, at the time on stage, I was more concerned with the silver goblets we were drinking from. The tech crew had painted them with a silver spray and the paint floated ominously in the water we were drinking. Anyway, all of this could have been avoided if the phone company had given me a job.

I haven't bored you yet with this story? Prepare to look in the Medusa's eye and be taken for granite.

When I was looking for work in the late Sixties, I thought my radio voice would work well as an operator for the telephone company. I went for an interview and test somewhere in the hellhole of the San Gabriel Valley. It took all day. I was the only male applying for the job amongst a small group of women. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE women and was happy to be in their company. I'm a suffragette. I read Mary Wollstonecraft and Germaine Greer. More likely than the woman who was doing the interviews. In the skill tests, I scored higher than the group. Zowie! This is in the bag . But then came the FINAL SOLUTION, the psychological profile. Some faceless female asked me about my previous job. That job was (if you've noted in a previous entry. POP QUIZ!) working for the Los Angeles Times soliciting new subscriptions. I was really good at it.

But I failed to realize that honesty is NOT the best policy when trying to get a job with a monolithic company like Pacific Telephone or Bell or whatever it was, post coffee cans and string.

Like a patient talking to his shrink (which I have never done, so this is a hypothetical Romantic device I am using simply for a lyrical/symbolic ironic metaphor, shaded in satirical symbolism), I confide to Ilsa, the She-Wolf of the S.S., that I FELT GUILTY calling people at home and convincing them that they should subscribe to the daily paper. Big mistake. Red lights went on.

The creature looked down at me and said, "It's my job to feel whether or not there is a fit with the applicant and the company, and in YOUR CASE, I feel there is no fit." So even though I scored higher than her fellow Amazons, I was out because of an ethical consideration note on invading one's privacy. She even sarcastically said, "Well, you're not out anything...except spending your entire day here."

Would Gloria Allred have taken this as a sexual discrimination case? Probably not. This was still the Sixties and SOME women still had issues.

So, despite my cynicism, I still like women more than men. But whoever you were Madam...things probably changed for you. If they were good, well terrific. But if they went bad, consider the small details. Every turn, even the tiniest, makes a difference.

Trust me. I've given this a lot of thought. I used to put baby powder in my hair to look older (helps you buy beer when you're under age).

No one asks for ID now (only if I need help with the oxygen tank to the car).

"Does it come every night?"

2011-10-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

During the run of Space Pirate Radio, there were always some pauses or intervals between broadcasts from station to station. Sometimes the station was the same station. Other times, a new frequency. Frequently. So pondering the days up to All Hallows' Eve, getting in the mood and such, considering all the influences...from early days in the horror TV business, to all the passions gothic, I went back to when Space Pirate Radio returned to the air on Halloween Sunday, Monday the First of November on NPR ass-filiate KCBX in San Luis Obispo, California. This was 1999.

Shall we party like it's 1939 instead? Yes! Let's! Why not? Certainly the station was sixty years behind the time.

This is your Obedient Servant, Orson Welles, and we are here to make contact with the departed spirit of Harry Houdini. Everyone seated round the table? Good. Fingers on the wine glass. Ouija board yet? Letters begin.

"You don't want me to leave Windwood house, do you Mother?"

Halloween and Space Pirate Radio were always a wonderful time for musical mayhem and sonic spookiness. Of course, for some listeners familiar or not with the program, it seemed like every show was Halloween. There were fine lines between Harmony, Humour and Horror. I dubbed these early experiments Audio Alchemy, and this fourth sabbat of the year was a perfect time to reach for the Philosophers Stoned.

Every Space Pirate Radio show enjoyed voyaging to the Outer Limits. On Halloween, we could get a little darker, but still be safe. Musical choices from Europe could be a tad more horrific (wasn't Tad Moore Horrific that good looking blonde kid in A Summer Place?). Nothing could be more extreme than Brainticket's Cottonwood Hill. Or White Noise and An Electric Storm in Hell. Lighten things up? Bonzo Dog Band with Monster Mash or Look Out, There's a Monster Coming. Back to the literate with Alan Parsons and Edgar Allan Poe or Prelude with the Seven Deadly Sins. How many Halloween shows had Christopher Lee telling the story of Dracula, only to be interrupted every three minutes, in true local LA TV style, by Oscar B. Chow. Hoping that you are enjoying "your...Golden Morning Movie."

Ah, yes Dracula. You had to be a vampire to listen to the show. Bed ridden with Nocturnal Transmissions. The illustrious Steam Count, wearing the famous crest of his family, is shown above. Giving Salute to the Radio Managers. So much for subtlety. It impales by comparison. But more on the one who never drinks wine in a moment.

All Hallow's was also a festive time at the Green Neon Motel, located in the heart, or rather, bladder of the San Industrial Valley. Year after year, front desk man Grungie Steinberg would be amazed by the arrival at the door of the latest costume design by longtime guest Chef Bruno Languini. It is my opinion that his tomato & cheese omelette was his crowning achievement. "Wow, Chef! When you bend over, I can see the melting cheese."

Or how many variations were there of that classic 1941 Unilateral film The Wolf Guy? Lon Chairs, Jr. so touching as the cursed Larry Tallbutt (so named after a family deformity). How many times did we quote the Old Gypsy Lady saying, "Though the path you walk is thorny. Through no fault of your own." "What the Hell does THAT mean?" Lonny would ask in pure torment. "Even a man who's pure of heart. And says his prayers at night. May become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms. And his trousers are too tight." Pure magic.

Obviously, to the long time listener, three horror films have been a constant mantra in the Space Pirate Radio mix. From 1974 till the end, 1931's Dracula began the show after my introductions. "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." That to me was the start of showtime. When I left Santa Barbara and went El Norte, the 1931 Mexican version of the same lines became the appropriate opening. I know I have played Klaus Kinski doing his low key version of the lines from Nosferatu, both in English and in German. These were giggles and not long term. The other two films are, of course, 1944's The Uninvited and 1956's Plan 9 From Outer Space. Like the resurgence in Lounge Music, I am intensely proud that Space Pirate Radio brought these unpopular works of art back into the current culture of ultra-chic. For those who didn't get it the first time round, I can cheerfully say, "Kiss my Capri pants enveloped derriere."

So stiletto heels off, zipper down, back to front. " Does it come every night? "

No.

Just when you begin to think you've dreamt it...

"Per Un Amico."

2011-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

My dear old artist friend David Fontana sent me this wonderful piece of art as a birthday gift. I felt I had to share it, as it captures the crazy dream time that was Space Pirate Radio in the early Seventies. As I have mentioned here before, David was one of my earliest friends who just happened to be a multi-fauceted artist ("He had the PIPES, man!"). Painter, cartoonist, a doodles weaver AND a musician. Ultra cool man. The Banana Man. The Banana Moon Man. Fontana di Luna.

A Cool Cat. A REAL talent. And man, a joy to do so many projects together on. What is wonderful is when you hook up with someone who is completely on your wavelength, very inspiring, totally original, secure in their own talents, willing to collaborate to make the vision happen in double time, not a competition, two individuals, united on sharing the joke...the ultimate Cosmic Giggle.

That is my dear friend. He painted the artwork on my Space Pirate Radio album when I thought we should trip out on the old RKO logo (it was good enough for King Kong in 1933 and Orson Welles in 1941). He worked with me on my play, Casanova's Lips, the later book publication of the same, and my TV program Crackers at Eight. He did art for an attempted magazine called The Hermit. We were dreamers, digging the music, drinking wine with Daevid Allen in a candlelit room filled with Gong LPs, considering the impossible. Flatulence Groove, or it was a Gas man.

And with all the great memories of past days, I can't keep up on all the adventures he has had after leaving Santa Barbara: playing music with experi-Mentalists in Germany, doing art in England, making cartoons abroad and back in Hollywood. Like a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, the liquid detergent, this cat's a pure sudsy bubble man. Floating between Myth and Magic.

I'm not sure of the complete histoire de banana. I've put his family tree in the Elvis P. band. They founded Fontana Records and started the city of Fontana, California. Created the art of letter printing. Font derived from the family name. Or not.

Either way, he is an a-Peel-ing fellow, with many a story to tell, if you can coax one or two out of him. I am happy we are still friends and can recall those early days of artistic enthusiasm. And dare I say, LUNA...? Si!

"Time to Noodle."

2011-10-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Dr. Wu-hu Returns!

Okay, Jo! We have just returned from many exciting adventures in the Far East. The Brigadier suggested we Nip Around the Corner (his yuck-yuck Colonial Era racist type of music hall humour) and pick up some takeaway Chinese food. As Time Laird, I suggest we jump into re-Tardis, set Wayback Control for early era, really fresh Szechuan food. Hot & Spicy! It Szechuan fire. Chapter end.

The story so far...well, you remember Jo, off we go in a flurry of shakey camera work. Winds whip your little mini-skirt. Have your undies like Chubby Checker. How you say? Knickers in a Twist? No matter. Before you could say Hammer Burt Electrique (featuring Gong Lee), we were in the Ming Dynasty (it was So Mercilous!). Quite an adventure! But not to bore you with minor details, save to say that thanks to Sonic Screwdriver (3 parts vodka, 1 part hedgehog), a certain talent with pasta and my inimitable impersonation of Robert Wyatt, the day was saved along with 8 separate species. But that's another story.

The Story of O by Pauline Reage. Well, that's another story too.

So back into the re-Tardis, Brigadier food kept warm on hot plate, off for an evening of clubbing in Shanghai. Everybody Wang Chung tonight.

But as so often happens on program, co-ordinates off due to abundance of cat fur (don't ask) and we wind up in pre-Eighties Cathay. Shanghai, yes. But yak loving, pre-disco dancing authorities think mysterious blue box smuggling opium. Monkey farts! If only. Don't you Melrose Avenue extras from Von Sternberg film recognize me? I am Doctor Wu-hu! Cosmic Celestial Cabin Cruiser. To no avail. Must hide on train, Shanghai Express. Jo and I meet lovely ladies. Share their car. Bohemians. Tall blonde lady of Germanic descent. And mysterious Chinese woman in black. Jo asked if they were going to a Siouxsie & the Banshees concert. A chilling quiet filled the room, which was already filled by tons of cigarette smoke. Many birds died for their clothing. I was attracted to them both. And with Jo in the room, I suddenly felt the desire to start a commune in Scotland or Big Sur. Me, as Yogi. My ladies as Handmaidens or Dacoits. Ah, what delights!

This reverie was soon interrupted by a halting of the train. The seriousness of the situation came fully back to me. A military man, who in evening dress reminded me of Charlie Chan, demanded to see my papers. I showed him this psychic paper thingee I have which becomes whatever the viewer thinks it should become. I don't understand how it works but it seems to get me past the doorman everytime. Anyway, this credential, backstage pass/passport thingee bought me some time for a moment. Until an unfortunate question came up. Unlike most episodes, we show up in the Forties, my companion is half naked in short skirt, thighs glistening in the bunker, lit only by the Battle of Britian. No questions asked.

Not this time. These damnably fiendish Chinese instantly noted the peculiarity of our clothing. Bryan Ferry haircut and Fox News Conservative bowties. And Botox ("Bowtox are cool"). Mon Dieux! We didn't FIT IN! The question was put to me. What kind of undergarments was I wearing. Never one to lie except when it is necessary, I replied, "I am a Calvin Klein man. I am wearing black briefs."

Without realizing it...I had started the Boxer Rebellion.

We escaped by our chins. Seriously, Max and Mabel Chin, laundry entrepreneurs, helped us get back to the re-Tardis, hidden in a cart of un-starched shirts ("no washee without tickee," we heard them shout while being pushed madly down the coach aisle, safely hidden amongst the shirt-tails).

Before safely leaving in the re-Tardis, I bought two shirts with the face of the lovely Chinese woman I had met earlier on the train car. Arriving back safely in Golders Green Cemetery, East Finchley, Jo and I, still wearing the shirts you see pictured, met a man who offered to trade a shirt with Betty White on it for our two shirts.

Glad to be home, food still warm, I had to refuse. "Sorry, no, " I replied. "Two Wongs don't make a White."

"There are no friends left."

2011-09-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

An old comrade from the White Russian daze, Steamer Ed (of the Industrial Revolution, not the Bolshevik), sometimes asks on message boards, regarding yours truly, "Is he still alive?" Or if this very own beacon of cathode fails to prove any vital signs, he will email the same question. Below is the form letter sent in reply:

Dear Mr. Steam R.

Thank you for your letter regarding Mr. Gui Godden.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gulden passed away in 2002 and our company has retained sole licensing and image rights to Mr. Gudin's creative output for these past eleven years. If you wish to incorporate any of our highly visible, yet late lamented client's unique creations, say on cocktail napkins or Scandinavian Pleasure Enhancers, please feel free to inquire on our rate system. We all sorely miss Mr. Gunden's contributions to the world of art, but know that his spirit will live on in our vast array of tasteful yet highly profitable commercial options.

Best regards,

Mort Scavanger

CEO Pacific Relations Industrial Celebrity Keepsakes (prick, for short...for certainly it is)

Now this could be a Howard Hughes sort of thing. You know, where the head of it all has long shuffled off this mortal coil but the shadow corporation pretends he's still alive. He's an eccentric, you understand. Stays up all night. Heavily medicated. Wears Kleenex boxes for slippers.

More sober minds prevail. Taking care of business and all that.

Who can say for sure. But like that film with Paul Le Mat and Jason Robards, here are some claimed recent sightings:

F for Fake? G for Guise?

(End title credits...song, Burt Bacharach, "Disguise in love with you.")

Snack bar theme. House lights up. Intermission.

"You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday too, yeah."

2011-09-18T00:41:00.000-07:00

Being a Time Laird is tough, folks. Ancient clockwork inside, running the pantomime. Outside, the perennial juvenile. Dick Powell on acid. For you youngsters without reference, that might be John Cusack in a Chinatown opium den. Still too elderly? How about one of those child stars on Nippleodeon (the network for under-nourished, non-breast fed children). iGnarly? Sorry, I'm losing it here This is what Old Age will do to you, folks. That's what being a Time Laird is all about . You start out as William Hartnell and end up as Matt Smith. Talk about cosmetic surgery. And what about all those companions? Sure, being around the young keeps you young. But there are laws out there, Citizens! So, if a blue police box appears outside your child's school...

But I digress...

Six Hundred & 20 Candles. Boy, is that a John Hughes film from Hell? (I believe Molly Ringwald was a companion around 1985-1986.) 620. Pretty antique. People say, "You don't look look a day over 500," but I know their lying through their non-false teeth. Bastards! Carbon-based lifeforms of undetermined parentage! Don't you realize how you break both of my hearts? (Time Lairds actually don't have twin hearts, only twin bladders. How do you think we make those long trips from one end of the universe to Croydon?)

But enough of this sentimentality. It's my party and I can cry if I want to. Billy Barty can have pie if he wants to.

Quick, Jo! Let's step into re-Tardis and head out to desert and Burning Midget Festival. So created in honour of great little artist, Billy Barty, who, sadly committed suicide. He jump off curb!

But wait! I have oddly different idea. Let's set Wayback Machine to 1968. (Mr. Peabody and Boy Sherman, not that different from Colin Baker and male companion who look like lead singer from Prodigy. Or was it Peter Davison? Not sure. Loss of memory. Too many re-degenerations.)

Why 1968? Because it is the year that the Beatles will personally wish me a birthday greeting in song for my 577th natal or 190th Earth year.

How is this, Dr. Wu-hu?

The Beatles are recording their double album, which will later be referred to as The White Album. Most songs take several days to record. But on September 18th, 1968, after watching Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can't Help It on British telly, the boys return to Abbey Road studios to record what is basically Paul's idea, "Birthday." Supposedly, it is one out of only two songs on the album that features both Paul and John on lead vocals, as well as Yoko Ono singing back-up. George Martin was not in the studio. It is the only song done on one day, September 18th.

As a Time Laird, I would love to be gracious and perhaps share the song with Beach Blanket Bongomeister, Frankie Avalon. Or the "What do I care for your orders. You can't frighten me, " double GG companion, Greta Garbo. But in my double heart and double bladder...I know the song....belongs to me! Thank you Fabs.

Now quick, Jo. Let's head into re-Tardis and set course for Ming Dynasty and get quick takeaway of Szechuan food. So hot and spicy, it will Szechuan fire!

"I don't know who you are Sir, or where you come from, but you've done me a power of good."

2011-09-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Hello folks! A September ramble here. Computer was down, so I listened to an old Goon Show that I probably hadn't heard since the mid Seventies or early Eighties. "The Great Regent's Park Swim" from October 1957. Recently released on the BBC's ongoing CD series. During those decades, I was fortunate to have had one of the most complete collections of Goon Show tapes from a variety of sources. These included reel to reel tapes of BBC World Service recordings throughout the years. David Ossman of the Firesign Theatre was kind enough to lend me his personal collection of transcription discs. He had broadcast them originally in New York. And over the years, I met fellow Goon fanatics who had the odd show, different from the original, highly edited EMI/Parlophone LPs or the later BBC vinyl series. Each new show was a cosmic/comic find of immense psychedelic proportions.

So as we hit September 8th, the twin birthdays of Peter Sellers and Sir Harry Secombe, I feel that modern rhythm Min!

Those with nothing better to do have seen in previous pages my meager encounters with the Goons in varying degrees. Peter Sellers was always a big influence. I have spoken before of my involvement with the Sellers Estate, especially with his widow, Lynne Frederick. Her initial blessing on the Sellers documentary I had put together, "Life is a State of Mind: The Life and Work of Peter Sellers," pretty much capped my obsession.

Earlier, I was proud to get Spike Milligan's consent to do a cameo in my "Space Pirate Video" pilot. He turned down a video project with Rolling Stones member Bill Wyman, but agreed to mine. No offense Bill, but there was a slight glow in the Space Pirate's intestinal system. Spike's secretary, Norma Farnes, treated me very kindly in Spike's office off Hyde Park in Orme Court (having introduced the Italian band Le Orme to U.S. audiences on Space Pirate Radio, I was always fond of the street name). I'm sorry the event did not come together, but I am pleased that Norma continues to carry on all artistic matters Milligna (the famous typing error).

Never met Neddy. Probably the sanest of the three (or four if we count original member Michael Bentine). Bentine or Milligan. Which one is Syd?

Didn't connect with Sir Harry, or his daughter, whose phone number and address was always on the desk, but I never felt like intruding. Son Andy, yes...see previous Star Wars entry.

Ray Ellington...Ellinga or Rage Ellington as Sellers called him in one hopped up episode. No. Nor his son, who portrayed his father in that HBO Sellers film. Wally Stott or the transformed Angela Morley? No.

But that great harmonica player, the butt of Jewish jokes and the Great Conk? Max Geldray. Yes. He was cool. And harmonicas are cool

Quick, into the re-Tardis. But first, a Time Laird Gnote...

Sellers was born in 1925. Secombe was born in 1921. Milligan was born in 1918.

Sellers died first. Secombe died second. And Milligan died last.

It's all in the mind, you know.

"You know, my astrologer says that Virgos are subject to cosmic boredom."

2011-08-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

Well friends, here we are once again under the sign of Virgo, my earthly solar Master. With moon in Cancer, my wet & wild watery Mistress? It's like laying naked in the mud at Woodstock, waiting for Jefferson Airplane to greet the morning. Or not.

But back to the Quote...I am marginally amused by those who claim to know yours truly; that I am easily bored. Or that I get bored with stuff quickly and then move on. NOT TRUE! I can honestly say that I haven't felt a state of boredom since my teen years or perhaps moments in a math classroom. I am never bored. Impatient, yes. Quite often. Frustrated also at times. But NEVER bored. This will sound SO POMPOUS, but to me, boredom is an air or attitude of the uninspired. To be bored is to be boring oneself. It means a definite lack of creative spirit and if that isn't SO POMPOUS 2 ("BIGGER THAN THE ORIGINAL!" so sez Murray Grope of the Brea Shop Fondler, your guide for Orange County Entertainment), than let's agree upon this: that it is definitely the domain of the unenthusiastic.

That's right folks! The SECRET INGREDIENT in every box of ENTHUSIASM is...N2ZSM. Created by the early alchemists. Distilled through the ages. Sought after by the Knights Templar. Hoarded by the Walkyrians. Recently plundered from the archives of Babylon. Now in vaults in Wyoming. And available in easy suppository capsule as daily used by Dick Cheney. It is the ELIXIR VITAE!

Coveted by the Ancients...available to only a Privileged Few (the upper 4%), this modern miracle is now available...to YOU!

Call the number on your screen. Operators are standing by or getting bi. BUT WAIT...! If you order in the next ten minutes...YOU WILL HAVE ORDERED IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES!!!

ACT NOW! ("To be or not to be. That is the question. Whether 'tis noble to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to wear the soiled toupees of forgotten anchors, or uh.... LINE!")

Where's my credit card?

Hold on. I'm getting sort of bored with this program. That's the problem with late night TV. Maybe there's something on The Hitler Channel. Who designed Goebbell's suits. Nazi lapels. Trousers of the Gestapo. And shoulder pads of the S.S. Archie in the Bunker.

What's on E (the only cable entertainment channel inspired by a rave drug)?

Oh, look. It's Pop Singer Sybil Janus of the band Spliff Personality and the Shapeshifters. I think that's Elvis Costello on her right. He's also a Virgo. In fact, today's his birthday. On her left, I'm not too sure who that is. Either some failed DJ or Lady Gaga before her operation (he was Laddie Dada then, sometimes only known as Gaga). "Lah dee da da dah!"

Who cares? Change the channel. G4? Oh no, more games. Boring. What's the channel between E and G4?

Oh yeah. F. U.

(What happened to all those Extenze ads? Combine them with David Cronenberg's film of nearly the same name. And oh dear! Not a pretty concept.)

But I digress...

"Baby you can drive my car."

2011-08-10T00:41:00.000-07:00

Hello kats and kittens. Sorry for the month long delay. After seeing the photo I posted of yours truly with that interesting man...I knew I needed a tune-up. A samurai and a friar. A nip and tuck. And a little hebrew dutch homeland. A re-JEW van nation. "Are there any groups I haven't offended yet?" Getting old is nasty. I needed some sincere pampering. As Bette Davis said in between murdering husbands, "Old age is not for sissies" or something butch like that. I knew it was time to visit the fat farm. La Bob Costa. The spa of the stars. Run by Fraulein Doktor. Hers and himmlers. Let the years peel away...

It was worth the time and expense. Madame Blavatsky gave me a full body rub. The medium IS the massage. I received the monkey ball injections (please don't tell PETA...I've recently become a member). Also the yak sperm facials. Plus the bo tox derek. I'm a NEW MAN!

So what else should a less than potent, but mentally rejuvenated alpha male do to thwart a mid-wife crisis? BUY A NEW CAR! Yes, sir! There is no better way to scream to the faceless masses, that...I AM IMPOTENT, yet I drive a NEW, INTIMIDATING fossil fueled vehicle, that I will scare you upon the roads . Let me make up for my physical, mental and spiritual shortcomings, by OVER COMPENSATING with this hyper-sized metal machine.

Well, I tried to avoid some of that bit by getting a car that fits with my persona and philosophy. Astute viewers of this page have already noted that in my lifetime, I have owned 3 white cars ("los trios autos blancos"), plus a red car that was a wedding gift from my mother-in-law. I had to get another white car. And there it is...! A Rolls-Canardly! Rolls down one hill...Canardly get up the next! ("Taa-dah!")

Please note in the photo that the car is small. I've always driven small cars. Confidence. Nothing more need be said. And eco-friendly. Foot power. A high brow hybrid.

Oh, and as the foto reveals...there are the results of my recent spa visit. Trying to avoid obvious vanity...but I REALLY do think I look younger. I got rid of the hippie, I am Gandalf hair. Why would I want that? And the wardrobe? You don't think the MAD MEN look is cool? Retro-fifties, lets bring back the black-list and tie. Bongos are in the trunk. Or boot, as the British would say. And with my little white car...this boot is made for walking.

"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily."

2011-06-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Hey, isn't that Michael Caine in Children of Men? Sure looks like it. No, wait...it's yours truly with recent holiday snaps. Hawaii, I think. Gaikiki. Why not? Taken in the garden of the I Can't Copacabana. Met this fellow. Seemed interesting.

Seems we are drinking. A double X cat he was. My brew is triple X, but it usually comes in film stock, not alcool. No matter. I was drinking Smiths and an olive. Hold the meat. A Johnny Marr-tini. I'm not sure. It's kind of a blur now. A Raymond Blurr. That's the Ironic Side of it. I think he was an apparent Mason. Never got his name. At first I thought he was the actor from Eyes Wide Shut, you know...the one who pimped his daughter, Leelee Polish Vodka. Then I thought he might be that Italian actor who played Sylvia Kristal's husband in those Emmanuelle movies.

Not sure. Still a little hungover (isn't that a Korean jeep?). Anyway, an interesting man. Not the MOST INTERESTING man I ever met, but up there.

Which leads me to the belief that I find women more interesting than men.

Not trying to boast here, but I think I made more enemies among my male friends, simply because I was in the company of women rather than hanging with the boys. Sorry. That's just how it was. I've met many interesting people throughout my life and I wish I could converse with so many of them again...so many questions, thoughts and reflections. But in my Bliss State, my love of Euphoria...it is always the women I want to be with.

Probably has something to do with a strong willed Mother and an older Sister. Both quadruple Leos. Strong willed and the fur flied. All my family members were Fire Signs. I was the odd Earth one (with tons of Water...hence, a lot of mud). Still, I am pretty happy with the placement. It's that Venus in Scorpio that kept me in the salons des les femmes rather than the sports bars of the grunting alpha males. Thanks to a cool Dad, the balance was perfect. A perfect perspective. I worship at the altar of the Goddess without being afraid of the Spider Woman. I love the Web. (Is the Freudian Symbolism too THICK HERE?) I'm hearing the voice of Roger from American Dad! when I write this. No, that can't be right.

Sorry, maybe it's still the after effect from the drink and the sun. I'm not usually out in the day this early. And I don't start the liquid consumption until it gets dark. Now that I think of it, the drink could of been a Bert I. Gordon's Gin. The Amazing Colossal Martini. Attack of the 50 Foot Wallbanger. Featuring Bombay Sapphire Blue Screen. Attack of the Puppet Pina Colada. Not sure. Kinda fuzzy. Navel? Air Force, actually.

Oh, yeah, the women. I love writers. Have had many encounters with some of the most celebrated authors. Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Jr. Jim Harrison. Yet, I am still intrigued by the conversation I had with Erica Jong or the chance to talk to Isabel Allende.

Must be my lunacy. Moon in Cancer. Maternal waters. The K-Tide man. Ebb and flow. Didn't Linus say, "I love humanity, it's just people I can't stand."

Well, I love people, but I prefer women. Interesting. Thank you Doctor Freud. Same time, next week?

By the way, your couch has a lump near the lower left thigh.

(An excerpt from the soon to be released musical based on a psychiatrist's notepad, entitled Our Hearts Were Jung and Gay.)

Technical note: in the photo, the martini glass is real, the liquid is water and the olive & pimento on a toothpick is made completely of glass.

Movie magic. Tricks of the trade. :)

"Well, I can see you're serving drinks..."

2011-06-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

My wife really loves Star Wars. And she likes the Goons. I really love the Goon Show. And I like Star Wars. Quite a bit, actually. So...it is a mysterious harmony of bliss when the two can Come Together and form a loving balance. Let me explain.
My darling wife quite often occupies the Star Wars Universe. I am old enough to have entered same space from Day One, yet in Rebel spirit (Galactic, not Confederate), I have retained a Jed Guy attitude of hermiticism. Obi in the desert. Yoda in the swamp. Like Space Pirate Radio, I am the Sputnik spinning around the Death Star. KTYD, Y-97, KCBX. They were all, at one time or another, Death Stars. But I digress...

How does the anarchistic BBC radio show of the Fifties and very early Sixties--launching pad for Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe--connect with the intergalactic world of George Lucas? In many ways. There are not Six Degrees of Separation. I've got it down to Three. Tee-hee! Thinks....

I've mentioned before my earlier encounters with Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness, and the mementos I hold from those days. Now Sir Alec was obviously the most important influence on Peter Sellers. A book could be written on it. But what is the Star Wars connection? Sellers lived to see the first film, but died in the year Empire Strikes Back came out (1980) and obviously never saw Return of the Jedi (1983).

Now let us jump into the re-Tardis and flash forward (or flash backward...as time can be rewritten) to Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

Having shared the experience of being in the queue for midnight showings of the reworked episodes and later the Holy Trinity, the little lady and I are kindred souls in the Happening. The new films give as much a thrill as the earlier encounters. And in contrast to many cynics, I find myself liking the new characters that seem to irritate the hoi polloi. I like Jar Jar Binks, 'cause I get the joke. He's the Robert Crumb Keep on Truckin' dude. It's San Francisco, Lucas Land, not Orange County. And Watto. Dig the subtext. He's Middle Eastern. Jewish or Arab. Isn't the nose a Nostrilferatu image? And remember, Christ-like Liam Neeson can't talk him out of the Deal with those Jedi Mind Tricks. I've worked for a money-minded Muslim from Pakistan who could become Watto in a nanosecond. "I'm sorry Annie, I sell your Mother. But I got GOOD PRICE."

Watto. Just a small businessman. Has a gambling problem, but would join the Elks or the Rotary Club if only they would let him in.

Okay, so it's Watto that holds the key here. My wife goes to the big Star Wars Celebration to meet as many people who may have stumbled into frame as possible (triple price if you have an action figure of yourself). She completes the Seth: Seth Green, Seth MacFarlane, Seth Rogen, Pink Floyd's Seth the Controls for the Heart of the Sun...Revenge of the Seth. And for ME...the voice of Watto...Andy Secombe....who--wait for it--my lovely wife DOESN'T realize is the son of Neddy Seagoon, Harry Secombe! TAA-DAAH!!! ("Waits for audience applause...not a sausage.")

I love this woman. She's my Minnie Bannister, companion to a decepit Henry Crun and lust object to a gas filled Major Bloodnok. And we like the same movies and go to the same concerts. Got tickets for the CANtina Band. Actually, to bear out how much of a Star Wars lover my little lady is, she just came back from Star Wars in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She saw Saturday's show (having already seen an earlier presentation in the past years), and was happy to see special guest, composer John Williams. "Stop that modern sinfull saxophone playing!"

And there's more where that came from....

The Sin Spots Of Europe

2011-06-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

"Yumpin' yart fanoot! Effer tim I write, it seems I don't know vhere to begin. It seems dat all of Europe is philled vith der steaming Sin Spots."

So begins another letter from my friend Olaf Sniffsen, Sweden's greatest authority on the pleasure palaces of the world. I know I could print his letter in its entirety, but Olaf writes like he talks; in an accent as thick as cream of monkey soup. Instead, I'll mention some of the unusual nightspots my friend frequents.

"Hamburg is probably der dirtiest city in Europe, if not just Germany," writes Olaf. The Reeperbalm is known as the Street of Sin. The Alleyway of Sin is the Tigerbalm. The streets are filled with clubs, movie houses, shops for unusual appliances and parlours of certain pleasures. Here is the home of the notorious "Ich Bin Naughty Naughty Klub." It features live sex shows with naked toasters and nude washing machines. Fraulein Beebee and the Typewriters of Sappho was the current popular attraction at the Klub.

"Der room is philled vith der scent of human steam. You can cut der atmosphere vith a knife, but most preferred a garden trowel. Beebee is on der stage, groping vith a Smith-Corona 2200 Electric. Businessmen, on veekend from Munich, are shouting out 'Backspace! Backspace!' and 'Release your margins!' Beebee is not too good on der forward cartridge motion, but her backspace is incredible. Men in der front row could see just how loose her margins vere."

Olaf Sniffsen further describes some of the specialty shops. Every taste is catered to, every kink is satisfied, no matter hour outre. For a certain sum of Deutsche Markes, a man can wrestle in the nude with a sofa, or be massaged with an electric golf cart. In a shop catering to humiliation, a woman named Gretta will criticize the length of your trouser legs.

"But be careful of der bogus German Sex Clinics," warns Olaf. He mentions that one clinic offers a home vasectomy kit, which doubles as an office stapler.

The best porno films in Europe are in Holland. "Hot Sheets in Amsterdam is probably my favourite film," Olaf writes. "Based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol, der modern setting of a Dutch call girl operation only heightens Gogol's rustic observations. Der colour is pretty good too. No purple tint."

Olaf goes on to mention that the audiences for these films are better in Holland also. Certainly the Screaming Beaver Theatre chain in America is one of the finest operations anywhere. But a bad audience of loud, rude and unsophisticated juveniles can always ruin it for the discriminate erotic cinemagoer. You'd think they had never seen a woman before with 20 Chinese waiters (as Veronica Nose had in Throbbing Big Guys). It's the discomfort of audiences like these that is forcing people into the purchase of adult home video equipment. Soon we shall all be urban voyeurs. But enough commentary. My thanks to Olaf Sniffsen for his global observations.

Speaking of films, on a less pornographic but still graphic level, is Paper Schrader's latest work Penguin People. The films stars my favourite Pistachio Kinki (daughter of German enigmatic actor Krauts Kinki). British actor Malcolm McDroll plays Kinki's brother who, due to ancient relatives having intimate relations with Arctic seabirds, turns into a penguin. The only way to stop this Eskimo Curse is for the brother to have sex with his sister. Despite a recent obsession with the frozen fish section in the supermarket, Kinki refuses to fall for his ploy and, needless to say, all Hell freezes over. After endless havoc, Kinki accepts her fate to be. "I just couldn't believe my brother could transform himself into a deadly penguin," Kinki says to the Eskimo housemaid. "I guess I should have suspected something was wrong when I saw his bedroom slippers in the freezer."

[First published June 8, 1982.]

"Cold hearted orb that rules the night."

2011-05-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

Full moon. The little one and I have been to the Rock Show. We have seen The Moody Blues in San Luis Obispo. It is our first concert together since Jon Anderson in Santa Barbara at the Lobero Theatre. My full time cinematic commitments prevent me from having the mobile artistic freedom I had in earlier years. My wife has more room in seeing shows than I do. Besides the work ethic, the sincere agoraphobia doesn't help matters either. This is why it is important to break habitual patterns whenever you can.

"Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers at night. May become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms. And his trousers are too tight."

How I have never forgotten those classic words from looney Hungarian actress Maria Ouspenkayak in the classic 1941 Unilateral Film, The Wolf Guy. Playing the eccentric gypsy lady, telling the fortune of actor Lon Chairs, Jr. (portraying the character Larry Tallbutt, so named after a family deformity). "I see you live alone," she sez, reading the lines in his hand. "How do you know that?" Tallbutt responds. "Because your palm is so hairy." Classic.

Back to the show. Are the best concerts performed on Full Moon or nearly Full Moon days? I remember Pink Floyd performing Dark Side of the Moon at the LA Sports Arena on a Full Moon. When the show was over, they had the spotlights (the old fashioned theatre premiere arclights) trained up into the sky, circling the full moon.

So here we are at the Moodies. Days of Future Passed was one of my most favourite albums in my youth and definitely inspired me to go into radio. When I did, the band always appeared on my broadcasts. I remember at KTYD the week that all the solo albums came out, like which Moody is your favourite? Of course, this happened with Yes member albums and Floyd to a degree as well.

But back to the show...with all my concert going, I have never actually seen the Moody Blues perform in concert. At KTYD in the nineties, we sponsored a show with Justin Hayward at the Coach House, which me and the wife saw, but only my wife had been to an actual Moody Blues show. I sort of dropped out from the whole thing, thinking they had gone Elvis...too Las Vegas. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see the circle come full turned; that the psychedelic enthusiasm had returned and that the craftsmanship of the performers was in full bloom

Wolfbane bloom.

Of course, a show like that can make you feel antique. Or optimistic. Original member Graeme Edge comes on and tells the audience he just celebrated his 70th birthday (in March). He dances on stage with the young girls who have been added to the band (and talented they are, covering flute, guitar and keyboard passages that early members Pinder and Thomas would have filled), before going back to his drum kit. I think that this must look like me, trying to be young and cool, but really pathetic and more than a foot in the grave. But wait. Hope springs eternal. And delusion is only an illusion with a passing grade of D.

It's ironic that I discard bands like the Moodies for decades and then come back when the unfashionable comes back in fashion (at least to me). Maybe it takes that long for the drugs to kick in. Or it could be because I can't travel down to LA to see the Yellow Magic Orchestra in June (Space Pirate Radio played them first on commercial radio). Sad, really. Trieste.

Lunacy, maybe. I would just hate to think that as a progressive rock n' roller, I've entered the Hallmark Channel phase of music. It's Peter Fonda for the Time/Life collection "Flour Power"...blanched while, a whiter shade of pale, more days than nights in white satin, stronger than white...white power...mucho blanco.

Let me check...no, I think everything is okay. It was good to see the three key members of classic Moodies, reinspired and reinvigorated with the enthusiasm of the dream state--that which was 1967. Parts of the show had the power and space of a Pink Floyd concert, the lyricism of a Yes concert and the raw energy of a Yardbirds show. Nice. I understand that Edge is the only cat from day one Moodies, and the boys kept referring to Days of Future Passed as their first album. But to us oldster Anglophiles, Moody Blues #1 (The Magnificent Moodies) was the first album. It's as almost pathetic as David Gilmour considering the first Pink Floyd album to be Saucerful of Secrets, 'cause hey, that's when Jesus was born. Get over it. Even Steve Howe plays on "Owner of a Lonely Heart" now. And in the past he'd rather cut his wrists with a conductor's punch than touch that riff.

"Go Now" would make an appropiate final song. Otherwise...it was a great show.

Are you sitting comfortably?

"You fill me with inertia."

2011-05-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

Oh, the Eighties! What the Hell was that decade all about? Orwell was right. So, I believe...was Space Pirate Radio. But hey, it was just a crazy paranoid radio show, going to extremes...which doesn't seem that extreme today. Parody or Prophetic? A warning, or a warming of the hearth? Who can tell? But I must say this: every time I try to write one of these manic musings, Windows comes on and shuts me down, telling me that new updates are being installed. Master or servant? It's f**kin HAL in monotone saying, "I'm sorry Guy...hold that inebriated thought...don't shut down your computer...32% complete." Orwell was right. Why do we even play with this toy created by the C.I.A. and the Pentagon? No need to worry Mothers. Let Donald Rumsfeld babysit your children. Are you sleeping yet? The pods are here.

Sorry, went off on a Tangent there (wasn't that the small Italian motorbike Gregory Peck whisked Audrey Hepburn off in Roman Holiday?).

Oh, yeah, the '80s...second to petroleum was peroxide. Why were we all nuts to highlight our hair? I'm a natural blonde. Why did I need to be more blonde? A case of Aryan identity? Did we all think we were members of The Police? Police state, more likely.

So during these mythical times of Big Hair and thin ties and electronic drums, yours truly subsidized his extreme artistic covert projects by appearing to be commercial friendly with RADIO PROMOTIONS. Like Jekyll and Hyde, my late night persona was counterbalanced by a sort of slightly capitalistic friendly, but subtly irreverent host to promotional events of on air salesmanship. Think Casey Kasem on mescaline. The actor in me could do the total professional bit, while trying to sneak in hipster code to those who might catch on.

For awhile at KTYD, I became quite good at this. It started with a live broadcast at a new Radio Shack in Carpinteria. Giving away free pizza at a new Domino's on Milpas in Santa Barbara. Opening a new blues club called BJs on State Street. If it was NEW, I was there. So the NEW had spread to Robinsons department store...and the hip NEW boutique, the Red Bag. Can we turn it into the Red Brigade, while Pappa's got a Brand New Red Bag? I'm there.

Robinsons department store in the La Cumbre Plaza. I'm invited by management to host the radio premiere event of the Red Bag--a hip, youth oriented boutique located in the fashion department of the store. I remember being driven by ultra-paranoid General Manager to meet the LADY director of promotions for the chain, to co-ordinate the opening affair. This is the cat who hated me, but tolerated moi because it meant big bucks for the station, and I was the one they had requested to host this on air affair. The lady was smart and well prepared and I clearly remember the visible agitation from el presidente swine-o being dictated to by a woman. I loved it and wished the radio sales staff could see the blustering god of the mountain so easily emasculated. Tee-hee!

The Event is planned. Yours truly will host the radio broadcast from mighty department store. There will be entertainment from a break dance group. But the special guest will be an instore appearance by fitness expert to the stars, Jake Steinfeld, author of Body By Jake. This is just before his TV fitness show of the same name became highly recognized.

Showtime. KTYD's regular programming of Quality Rock (and a side of Roll) is interspersed or interrupted by breaks from yours truly, telling you that the air of excitement is SO THICK you can cut it with a garden trowel. I have concert tickets to give away...The Go-Go's at the County Bowl. This IS the place to be.

A couple of footnotes, anklenotes and a kneenote here...before my mega-successful career as a radio icon, I had actually worked at Robinsons.

First in shipping and receiving, and later as a mobile idiot who went from department to department, delivering items and sending stock to other stores throughout California. When I did the latter, my in corpus appearance required the application of a cheap hair apparatus, this due to my Jesus length of spiritual (but not yet high dilated) blonde locks. Wouldn't want to shock the Watergate wives of Hope Ranch who might be shopping for over-priced, nonessential goods. The wig was some awful thing, possibly bought in a porno shop in Chatsworth, very brown and looking like a cross between Alfalfa's hair and Fess Parker's coonskin cap. I'm sure it was made of missing cats in Thousand Oaks and not Peta friendly. I remember some cat (the salesman variety) in Men's Apparel, wearing on his head what looked like Marilyn Chambers' quasi-blonde beaver, calling out to me while I'm hustling some coat from the Women's Department on the mobile rack, "Where did you get YOUR wig from?" Who knows what he looked like without it. Fast forward to event:

Although I am here to promote this new cool boutique...I am wearing the glacier styled fashions of the Eighties from Gary Paul, the tres chi-chi clothiers on Middle State Street, a loogies distance from the old KTYD studios in the Granola Building. Dig all that grey, man. Only in the Eighties was it cool to look like Edward G. Robinson in a Thirties gangster film like Bullets or Ballots.

Okay. So the choreographed street dancers do their thing. Next, Jake is going to show slightly aged ladies how they can stay in shape by gyrating with a broom. Seriously. While all this is going on, I am phoning in heated on air reports to the mothership. Of course, no one in the store is hearing this. So on air, I tell the listeners, "You really got to come down here and see this Jake Steinfeld. He IS INCREDIBLE! He's built like a concrete bunker. He's like two separate gorillas. This man is AMAZING! Now listen folks, I have a pair of tickets to see The Go-Go's this weekend at the County Bowl. If you have the GUTS to come up to Body By Jake and SAY something RUDE to him, I WILL GIVE you these pair of tickets." :)

The show progresses. It is going well. Lady promotion director is pleased with the success of the turnout. Breakdancers are doing their thing again. We are off to a side of the store. Jake comes back. "How did that work for you?" she asks Jake. "Fine," he says, "except there were a bunch of people who kept saying rude things to me. Someone said I was big poo-poo. Or 'are those muscles real?'" I feigned shock and amazement that people could be so RUDE.

Years later, Jake Steinfeld and I would appear in the motion picture, Into the Night, but not in the same scenes. I would have told him. The truth, I mean. Seriously. I would have. I really liked him. If we had been in the same scenes. But we weren't. So I couldn't tell him. But I would have.

The poo-poo people won the tickets.

Most Forgotten Cult Films

2011-05-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

What is it that turns a film into a cult classic? Usually the film is of limited appeal, or dealing with a controversial subject. Cult films are mostly smaller budgeted affairs, or films featuring actors in lesser known roles. What usually sets the cult film apart from other celluloid ventures, however, is that it is god awful. Here is a list of some of the lesser known cult favorites:

ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS HORROR PICTURE SHOW:
This is the grand daddy of them all. A favorite of the weekend midnight movie set. This film brings out audience members dressed as their favorite Jay Ward animated character. Though most imitate the lead character of Bullwinkle J. Moose, as well as countless femme fatales posing as Natasha, quite often a Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody or Wrongway Peachfuzz appears at these gatherings. This reviewer was complimented on his Sherman costume. I was wasn't wearing any.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD FROM OUTER SPACE:
Many consider this film the worst ever made, but I profess a secret love for the movie. Directed in 1956 by furniture transvestite Edward D. Drapes (who often appeared on the set decked out as a Danish modern coffee table), this is the last film to ever feature famed vampire actor Bela Lumbago. Lumbago died during the making of the film, or so everyone thought. Actually, he ran off to Tustin with his secretary Mona, in an attempt to cure himself from his fromage fix, a deadly addiction to cheese aged long enough to smell like gym towels. Scenes with Lumbago early in the film do not match with later ones, partially because director Drapes curiously replaced the actor with a standing three-way lamp fixture, a move never explained to this day.

The plot of this film deals with outer space beings attempting to take over the world by raising dead condoms. Not a pretty sight. The film is intercut with quack fortune teller Kitschkin intoning doomlike lines such as "Who can say for sure that beings from another world may not attempt a world takeover bid by controlling douchefoam?" My favorite line in the film, however, is when space guy, Mister I.U.D. says to the captured earthmen, "All you of earth are seriously bogus!" Truly of what a cult film should be made.

MY LUNCH WITH MARVIN:
This three-hour film takes place entirely at a lunch time restaurant. The famed frog director Louis Air Maille attempts a random film made up of chowtime banter. The longest scene in the film is when each of the men slowly pulls out his respective wallet waiting to see if the other will pick up the tab.

QUADRAPATERIA:
This is truly a curiosity. A Chinese film attempting to imitate the English Mod movement. Bands of rivalling Mods and Rockers in Shanghai are simply called Woks, who meet in China's first four-level shopping mall. Music is supplied by Wokband, the Wu, lead by riveting guitarist, Pete Taoism (who earlier had written the first Wok Opera about a blind Sushi cook called Tatami, featuring the famous lyric, "Sashi me! Touch me! Heal me!"). Many classic Wu songs appear in Quadrapateria, including the lost sales slip anthem, "I Can't Exchange." Truly, there has never been another film to better depict the rise of youthful Mandarin angst.

As I look over the flyers for many revival theatres, I am amazed at the quantity and variety of films that become the so-called cult film. Old time musicals like Meet Me In El Monte. Foreign films like Federico Fettucine's 6 & 7/8. And hardcore X rated A-Dult entertainment like Grunting Squatties. It warms my heart, and sometimes other body parts, to see this truly international, ageless, and philosophically unfettered array of cinematic offerings. To heck, I say, with the Hollywood hype of wide run motion pictures. Give me the cult film, the revival festival. Now what should I see next? Harlan Elementary's sci-fi classic A Boy and His Slug? A Matt Dullard brainless youth film festival? A French farce like Pierre Regurge in The Tall Blond Man With One Bland Sandwich? A psycho slasher film like I Was Beau Bridges. Or maybe a classic Hollywood adventure film like Tarzan and His Common Law Wife? Ah! So many films and so little time.

[First published May 9, 1984.]

"What they've got was an apparent flash from the master."

2011-05-05T01:07:00.000-07:00

Frank Zappa taught me a lot on how to do an interview on radio. What I learned was not to compromise. Frank demands total creative control in his realm. So should you in your own. Here's how that all went about...

In the early '70s, I thought I had BIG IDEAS for what radio could become. And I was test driving; trying every Mad Scientist experiment one could do in terms of audio alchemy on my living wireless lab, Space Pirate Radio. The audacity of youth. I believed anything was possible. And this included the idea of a community of artists. Although raised on Top 40 radio, inspired by the British and European (and even Mexican) so-called Pirate Radio stations and then charged up by Freeform FM stations, I wanted to take it further. Old '30s, '40s & '50s radio drama, coupled with the international hook-up of shortwave, added to the immediacy of ham broadcasting...it was hi-fi/sci-fi time. "I have a dream...actually I have a whole bunch of them!" Meet me on the glowing cathode.

Visual Aural. Sounds like high tech porno from Prague. Well...maybe a bit. But really, it's Rotwang's early answer to Clear Channel, only with the Soul remaining intact.

KTYD in Santa Barbara in the '70s was a great place for all of us On Air loons to do our Own Thing. I'm sure if you tapped on the glass enclosed case of the breathing apparatus that houses the few remaining semi-conscious members of the airstaff, held up a large written piece of paper, scrawled in big letters with black or red ink...something simple, like..."DID YOU HAVE FREEDOM TO PLAY WHAT YOU WANTED ON THE RADIO?" they might gasp through the airtube a gargle, that the Berlitz School of Language would interpret...as "Yes."

So I had heard Frank Zappa say in an interview that there was NO FREEDOM on commercial radio. The commercial radio stations wouldn't play his music, no diversity, etc. Well here we were, in Santa Barbara, definitely a commercial radio station (we had commercials and some of them were the most outrageous commercials you could possibly have on the air, but that's another topic later). Zounds! Methinks I will invite Frank to come on Space Pirate Radio. He can play ANYTHING he wants to play, SAY anything he wants to say...and he will witness the true freedom of our Utopian radio station. Progressive radio! Progress in action!

So I call Herb Cohen, his manager at Reprise Records, and see if we can make magic happen. Frank and the Mothers of Invention are coming to play the Big Avocado...UCSB's own Metropolitan Opera House...the Robertson Gym!

This will be great! Frank will come aboard the Space Pirate Radio airship, have the freedom to play what ever he wants, say what ever he feels. What liberation! What a joy! He will share the communal ecstasy of kindred spirits. It's all placed in motion. A new age begins with a tiny step in radio freedom. Except...

Now let me say here, I was a fan of Zappa, but not as in awe as others might be. I did buy Freak Out when it first came out...I am that old. I loved Peaches in Regalia from Hot Rats and admired 200 Motels as a film and album (I used Mystery Roach as a song in my X-Rated play at Santa Barbara City College, Void in Wisconsin).

But I have to admit my interest in Frank and the Mothers was more in how they had inspired the psychedelic, experimental bands of Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Amon Duul 2, which was first played on commercial radio with Space Pirate Radio, saw the Mothers of Invention as a major influence, as well as Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. However, much was lost in translation. Guru Guru was another. The problem with these bands in Europe was that they were inspired by the freakiness of these Kalifornia bands, but not aware of how diametrically opposed their philosophies were. The German bands were utopian. Frank, despite the long hair and Donovan like psychedelic photo shoots, was definitely dystopian. An East L.A. lowrider, Mad Maximillian dystopian. And wait for it...an ultra conservative. The mind explodes!

This will all come out in the wash later.

So there are major differences between the Mothers and their European inspired counterparts. Politics for one. Sensuality and Eroticism for the other. The Euro bands had a more Romantic core to their work. Frank saw women in a much more crass way. After all, this was the man who wrote music inspired by the actual Enema Bandit. The Germans enjoyed free love. Frank had the GTO's. Communal as opposed to dictatorial. I'm not aware of all this contradiction at the time. I just want to get him to play radio.

So, it's all set. Till...the last minute. Cohen tells me, Frank doesn't want to do the radio show. But he consents to an interview after the show. Rat turds. Hot Rat turds. The concept, the euphoria, the freedom is gone. It's now Dick Clark with Syd Barrett. If I had been smarter, I should have said no. But it's Frank Zappa...let's improvise. When I was Entertainment Editor for KTMS, I had no problem with those kind of on the run, Access Hollywood, Showbiz Tonight, toady catch as catch can backstage, soundbite type glamour interviews. But this was meant to be different. It's all new and there is no net here. We will learn from our falls, as long as our spine is not broken.

Now it's different. Instead of getting Frank in a comfortable environment, I will have to try and create some sort of artistic rapport backstage, surrounded by others, after an intense performance. Like smoking on the Hindenberg. Safe.

Actually, it started out pretty cool. I was invited to the soundcheck and this was quite special. I recorded it and it is hidden in the SPR archives. Frank was not the aggressive persona he liked to play. He played beautiful guitar solos that never appeared in the actual show. I'm in the bleachers, taping away. He's doing a wonderful piece of guitar work, stops and yells out to me..."Is that too loud? Does that hurt you?" Not at all. It's sublime. This feels good. I am optimistic that some of the spark that I had hoped would happen in the studio can be generated in the field.

Showtime. Concert goes on but with none of the softer, sensual moments of the soundcheck. It's like a different persona comes on for the crowd. Hmmm. Aftershow, backstage, the interview...I'm not sure this is going to translate Space Pirate Radio style. Is there a style? Well, it's new...and we are still experimenting here. Now realize, this is before Howard Stern and all those idiotic morning zoo type of jocks. It's late night, freeform with all my influences: Mad Magazine, Ernie Kovacs, the Goon Show, Firesign. Music and humour. Both avant-garde and progressive. Can this alchemy work? Lead or gold? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no.

I meet Frank Zappa with microphone and this Frank is different from Frank I met in soundcheck. He has his entourage with him, wife Gail I assume (no introductions), a bit of a harem (Sheik Yerbooti?). I start the interview tongue definitely in cheek. Conceptual artist, try new concepts. "So, Frank," I ask..."What do you think of the new revolution?" "What revolution?" Frank replies. "The one that will happen when President Ford is assassinated in Lincoln Theatre." (Now I think this pun is super high concept...surely the Zappmeister will be dazzled by this unique take on the traditional interview. Light years ahead of the Colbert Report.)

"You're full of shit," Frank responds to my creativity. We're friends immediately. I knew I could set the right tone. "No one has the guts to play my music," Frank implies. But Frank, it is pointed out...We (KTYD AM & FM) played your song Billy the Mountain at 3.p.m.today, a song with the F word quite pronounced. Even manager Herb Cohen in the room sez, "It's true Frank. I heard it driving up." Frank's response: "Well the F.C.C. will throw your butts in jail." It was at this point I realized that with Frank Zappa, if you loved his music...you were an asshole. If you hated his music...you were an asshole. It was a no win situation. There was only one spotlight and it was on Frank. No wonder so many talented musicians and artists came and went through the doors. Again, I noticed that after the tape recorders were turned off, he became more human. It seemed like it was a role he had to play. Frank vs. the world. To the outside world he was a freak, but his family mindset was ultra conservative, atomic bunker type. Very strange. When he got sick later in his life, he moved to the left, or so it seemed, but it was too late.

Missed opportunity.

But it changed how later Space Pirate Radio interviews would be held. No more compromises. I really only wanted to talk to the artists I truly liked or wished to get to know on a creative level. And it had to be friendly. Like with Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, with his wife Janet...we went out to dinner first, got to know each other, felt comfortable before going in front of the microphone. The chat was perfect, easy going, spontaneous and sincere. And it was fun. No bullshit. This pattern continued in all my later interviews: Bryan Ferry, Bill Bruford, Edgar Froese, Steve Hackett, Pete Bardens, Thomas Dolby, Richard Butler, Mike Oldfield as well as my non-music guests (the film & literary types).

Just friends, hoping for a bit of Utopia.

"Deefeecult for you. Easy for me."

2011-04-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

I've been sick for the past week with the Lurgi. Or is it the Spon Plague? Can't tell anymore with all the mutations. Added radiation levels here in Kalifornia, plus the usual blend of petroleum and pesticide car wash...this, that is the hallmark of Central Services California. Breathe deep as the Moodies would say. Going off track again. Anyway, sick, like most of the other dismal occupants of this Tex-Mex Valley of Sickness, as the Chumash Indians called the area...and this was well BEFORE the oil wells and pesticides and radioactive dirt from the John Wayne film "The Mongol." "It's Hell, I say." The young think it's only sinus problems. The elders know it's Certain Death! But I digress...

Having a cold is no fun, except for one thing: it changes my voice and I can sound like obscure character actors. Suddenly Orson Welles is easy. Or John Houston or Sidney Greenstreet. David Suchet...a breeze. A touch of bronchitis or throat cancer and it sounds like a lifetime of cigars and Johnnie Walker Red. Is that George Zucco on the phone telling former fascist-mafiosa boss to stick fist up rectal plumbing? Who can be sure? It's just a fever dream.

So is this topic my love of mimicry? Not sure. I do truly understand the Peter Sellers approach to acting: the voice came first. It's a radio thing. The Ear is just slightly ahead of the Eye. Working in tandem, but it is a trade off. For myself, this is a delight but more likely a pain in the ass for all of my friends. Going to the movies with me is no fun (besides my inability to not comment during the film regarding some trivial criticism or useless piece of esoterica); the worst bit is the after-effect. The mimic's curse. If we have watched a Michael Caine film, I will be unable to not stop sounding like him (I am actually writing these words in Sir Michael's broken cockney style...thank God you can't hear it. If I attempted to write it out, the previous sentences would have been filled with pauses, hyphens and a ton of dots...), for at least a half an hour after the viewing. This is the usual problem with most British films. Peter O'Toole, David Warner, the Pythons. Lately I bore my friends with my Jason Statham ("Don't touch the f..king car"). I don't need pneumonia to do that one.

While British are the easiest for me (as noted earlier, I got my first job in radio pretending to be English), other Europeans can possess my soul like a bad Benny Hinn Revival ("Did someone touch me?"). Germans are a curse. I know. I am one. I am sure my wife is tired of my Armin Mueller-Stahl impressions. This Munchen actor from the Fassbinder school always seems to end every sentence with the question, "yes?" "So Kafka, they followed you, yes?" Since my wife loves the band Yes, I can torment her in the wee hours of the morning by asking in the Armin-ean tones, "So, Kafka, you like the band Yes, yes?" This might be considered a union of vaudeville and waterboarding, but to me it is a form of art that may have amused Torquemada.

Just as Sellers and Milligan could easily become Hindu Abbott and Costellos on the Goon Show, I find myself absorbing all the inflections of the films I watch. I live in a heavily populated area of Mexican-Americans, yet seem to keep my parody level low. Except for occasional bursts of Telemundo, telenovela announcer-type proclamations or bad Sabado Gigante buffoonery, my mimicry is more subdued and in awe to the "mucho fuego" quality of the steamy Salma Hayek or Paz Vega.

I miss watching Animal Nocturno on Friday nights from Mexico City. Ricardo Rocha and (hubba-hubba!) Patricia Llaca were the closest to a pure, multi-cultural, Hispanic program I have ever seen. Like Jack Paar with Frida Kahlo. My wife even became a believer when old Space Pirate Radio friend Tony Levin appeared on the show, unexpectedly, with his band and did more songs live than would have ever been seen on U.S. television. Late night Mexican TV at its best, rather than Escandalo TV (you have to be kidding) or El Gordo y Flaca. If I was less hetero, it would be re-runs of Viviana a la Media Noche. But I see I've gone off the tracks here once more. "Hola, las Pulgas!"

So what have we learned here? Not much, really. Chevy Chase, on his ill-fated late night talk show, was criticized for making a reference to Senor Wences. Don't make references to something your audience is probably too young to know. Keep it current. Don't be smart. This MAY be less fashionable, but f..k that noise. Hip is cool. And young is very cool. I wish I had your energy. But stupid sucks...so play that game their way and you will be used and abused. Which is what they want. Dumb it down. We can USE you. We understand. Au contraire, mes amis. Keep it oblique as long as it is still true to what you believe. If they don't get the reference, that's their problem.

So having made reference to Senor Wences, I cancel my own show ("All right?"). Now there was an artist. A Central European imitating a Spanish surrealist with a Portuguese head in a box. You wouldn't have The Muppets or Star Wars or Yoda without him, mixing it up first. But that's another topic. Except I've cancelled my show...So,

Germans are fun to do. I've mentioned this. A glass or 2 of Moselle wine and I will do BOTH Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski ("Kinski vas a mad-man, a luna tick" ). Herzog murdered Kinski. Perry Mason could prove this. "Dees leeves from the Columbian rainforest...Cook dem for tree minoots, a delicacy. Cook dem for tree minoots and ten seconds...a lethal poison...your live functions seas in a total state of shock." Lots of laughs. I played a crazed German doctor in Arsenic & Old Lace. One word would get me in character: "gerschitzen."

That's right, folks. Single words or small phrases can set you off in multi-personality dementia. "Yumpin yart fanoot" is the Manchurian Candidate code for instant Swedish. "Tony" or "Tone E" brings on an instant Charles Boyer. "Torture" or "Tor Chure" will manifest into spontaneous Bela Lugosi.

(Speaking of multi-personalities...although I've never seen a single episode of The United States of Tara, I am happy to see that the writer dated the same girl I used to know. Even down to the name. A slight Vowel Movement.)

So what about that picture? It's an exclusive shot of the new Doctor Who ("Bowties are cool."). Oops, sorry, no, it's not. And he wouldn't have made that sartorial comment if he had seen Matt Drudge. Actually, pictured above is disturbed Ruskie poet Sergei Suitenpanz, companion of modern dance icon Isadora Duncan. I'd love to tell you more, but I've been cancelled. If I could, I would pour another glass of Rasputin, the Mad Wodka and begin my story as follows...

"Pussies galore!"

2011-04-17T23:51:00.000-07:00

As we near May Day, I approach my bi-polar obsession of Paganism and Socialism with a continued nod to my animal friends. I think I prefer animals to most people. They don't drive badly, join the NRA or watch Fox News. Yes, Hitler had his dogs...so did Bush. Clinton had a cat. Bravo! Better a warlock to have his familiar, than a jackboot to have a Cheney or Rove. Giggle here...otherwise, bite me.

(Speaking of bi-polar...I had a twit of a friend once write to someone, "you know I think Guden is bi-polar." I wrote back, "How dare you? I have never had a homosexual relationship with an eskimo." Watch out my friend,...to those who re-write your history. Suggest they invest in Fecal Wash, the eyewash for those with Cabeza del Bunghol.) :)

Cats...I love them. It's the BASTard in me. Tee-hee!

I love all creatures great and small. Many animals in the Guden household. But with only one dog that I can recall dearly, a lovely brown chihuahua that my sister had, I seem to remember the family as mainly a household of cats.

Our first cat was brought into the household by my sister Kay, now Katherine. She had an interest in all things French (went to France before any of us left Orange County). I think it was a white kitten. Named it Pousoi. A later kitten was named Pousette. So a French thing started here.

After that, when we left Fullerton for Diamond Bar...cats were named Clouseau, Toulouse and Shadeau (or Shadoux, as this was a Franco-hallucinatory play on the Mad Magazine parody of The Shadow with the character called Lamont Shadowskiddeeboomboom....or so I remember).

Be careful what you name your animals. Our cat Toulouse, named after the famous tiny French poster painter with the damaged legs, slept in the garage. Accidentally, my father driving his car in, ran over the cat's legs, rendering him crippled like his namesake. My wife and I had a cat named Nico, after the singer. Though not killed in a bicycle accident in Spain or a heroin overdose, poor Nico was hit by a car and dragged himself onto the driveway to die. We were watching Veggietales when this happened. Can't stomach them anymore. Bob the Tomato is now in my BLT, minus the B. (Recently joined PETA.) Loved the Cheeseburger song, but we can get past this. Back to my Pagan roots...it's only a song. One of the key members of Strawberry Alarm Clock ("incense & peppermint"...all those cool paisley psychedelic shirts...fuzz guitar, drone E organ) became a real estate mogul, redeveloping the vistas of Santa Barbara for high-end condos and businesses. "Let US pave your paradise." But I digress...

The photo of past is yours truly with Fu (after Fu Manchu), the white Siamese and I believe, the yet to be ill-fated Toulouse. It might be Shadoux or Shadeau. I'm not sure. I'm turning into Reagan: "I'm sorry... I can't recall. Too many micro-waves from the G.E. All-Electric Home. Plus radio. I don't recall signing the contra orders. I was under anaesthesia and my V.P. was in charge. Hey, do you remember Death Valley Days and the 20 Mule team? Boraxo soap sponsored that show and sometimes the team only had 17 Mules. What do you think was in the soap? We learned a lot from the Germans. I'm sorry...I'm getting sleepy now, Mommy. Bedtime for Bonzo."

When I got married and moved into a house...well the cat commune really begins. I am the L. Ron Hubbard of cat cults. Care to be mEow E-Metered? Claro, el Gato? Tee-hee!

Seriously, though. My wife and her family were cat lovers. There were several cats when I arrived, but sadly all of them have passed on. You may have already seen the posted foto of Emma in my rant on radio General Managers. The children of Malcolm and Nico and Glenda and sister Kinski (they were a VERY CLOSE family and aptly named) are still here but one, thank the Gods of old. I quietly call them the Brothers Karamazov, but Grime and Punishment could also fit for literary punsters. Six cats in all, and two outsiders who visit, have a meal and carry on their journey.

But wait, I haven't told you about our Easter Bunny that arrived near All Hallow's Eve. And the colourful parrots that out-sing Carmen Miranda. And the ancient, all knowing turtles, smaller cousins of those on Ascension Island. And the generations of possums, related to our dear Pogo. And the soulful raccoons, almost the size of small kangaroos, who will eat out of your hand. And...

But first, let's watch our favourite pet quiz show, "What's My feLine?" Brought to you by CAT, a tonic. The healthy drink that leaves you refreshed AND stationary. Now let's introduce you to the paw-nel...I mean, kennel. "That star of stage and screen and litter box..."

"I am a very foolish fond old man."

2011-04-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

In less cataclysmic times than today...or so it seemed, to those of us cloaked in audacious youthful energy...there was extra amount of elbow room to be outrageous. Our daily life could be performance art. And certain holidays gave us that chance to be outre. All Hallows was the obvious selection. But for some of us Tarot Card obsessed funsters, April First was the Day of Choice.

Tiny entry here. I think I have spoken before on how, on April 1, we loved to giggle up. On KTYD we turned the station into a screaming Top 40 station--the antithesis of the freeform FM we had become. I was the Real Don Robot, my parody of old LA based KHJ radio, "Boss Radio."

In print, the Santa Barbara News & Review became a parody of the local daily rag, "Not the News-Press." I remember telling the Editor of Night Light that I wanted to print my article on my visit to the The Man From U.N.C.L.E. set, and we should do an April Fools parody of the paper. He nixed both ideas. So I went to the alternate paper. They did the parody AND placed my U.N.C.L.E. story as the cover article...sorry, but as Cal Worthington used to say, "just let me have first chance at the deal."

The best April Fools party was at Zelos. The Space Pirate Radio 12th Anniversary poster party was a huge success for the club. So, I proposed an April Fools Party which was, fortunately, even more successful. Those were lucky moments. The Space Pirate Radio Poster Event was a huge success, but you could get in. For some unexplained reason, the April Fools celebration was packed beyond legal capacity. A big success for the club and a pride-filled moment for yours truly...that being Foolish in a business world could maybe work.

Printed herewith is the fake Zelo menu I wrote for the occasion. The Blessing or Curse with all my comic writing is that it has to make me giggle first. If I am certifiable or living in an alternate universe (both real and possible explanations), this could be a problem. But I think I am a tough critic (Virgo, the Critic, remember) and I always try with the multi-dimensional joke: one level for this experienced individual; another for the multi-lingual, well travelled, historically drenched and philosophically gob smacked alien in polite society. Another blog sometimes...

(Wasn't The Blog the 1958 sci-fi debut of Steve McQueen?) Despite the feelings of some, if I have to chose ONLY ONE job description on my South American passport over all others (writer, actor, disc jockey, artist, director, pornographer, fungus), I would choose satirist.

A Foolish First of April to you all.

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered."

2011-03-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

Let me insert another photo of yours truly with King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford. This picture was taken outside the soulless, modern KTYD studios in Goleta, after having left the eighth floor of the historic Granada Theatre building. Note, I am wearing the unusual wooden glasses that I had bought from France, imported into Santa Barbara to an optical store on State Street and Micheltorena. It's the '80s folks, and these are my Salad Days (what the Hell does that mean? That I couldn't afford the main course?). I loved those glasses. They were made of lightweight Asian wood. Comparisons were made to Elton John or Trevor Horn, but I never saw anyone else have a pair. And at the time, I thought they fitted in with what I was trying to do. A little style, a little Art, for one who felt ambivalent about show and biz. I used to joke about the frames: 1) I would say that the wood was from the Original Cross, and 2) that the wood was so light, that if I ever drowned, you could locate the body where the frames were floating.

Anyway, I make a long story longer...

Those glasses...the picture...in front of the soulless studios. Later on, a photo was taken of the radio staff (in front of the same studios) for a Christmas Greeting Card. We are now run by a GM who breaks the mold in hyper, right wing paranoia. He is my bete noire. My wooden glasses have broken their spring-based ear stems. I can't wear them for the photo. I will have to wear my older, John Lennon-like wire frames for the foto shoot. GM goes Bobby De Niro or Al Pacino fumed nutso. Pulls Program Director aside and sez, "What's Guden trying to say? That modern rock sucks and we should go back to the '60s? Fire him!"

This was not the first time El Jefe tried to remove yours truly. It started during the election of Reagan against Carter. On election day, boss man comes into the studios, eyeing me as the soul member of a '60s based mindset (I still had the longest hair among the Sales types). He boasts that he was the first to vote in the early morning hours at the Santa Barbara Court House ("I wanted to be the first one to vote for Reagan"). He mentions that he stumbles on a couple of long-hairs, camped out to be the first to vote for Carter. "Your people, " he digs at me. I reply: "Well, I voted for Carter, so my vote cancels out your vote." Surprise, surprise! It's AMAZING what you can say to a high octane fueled, ultra paranoid Big Biz type that can set him off. He pulled off his dutiful Program Director into the Secret Sanctum and commanded: "Fire him!" The PD rather timidly pointed out that someone couldn't be fired for their democratic freedom of choice at the ballot box. But the V for Vendetta was put into place. "Find a reason...and Fire Him!" Ah, those were the Good Old Days, Mein Herr (und Meine Dammen).

And they found a way. During the Christmas Holidays I got sick, so I called in a fellow employee to fill in for me. This was a breach of command ("I should have called the GM, despite being unavailable for such trivialities, to authorize who would fill my time spot. Unacceptable. You're fired. 12 years with KTYD, goodbye...no severance pay... get out, f**k off.").

Now this came from a man who boasted that he had paintings on his wall that had swastikas hidden behind him, and he would invite his Jewish business friends over for dinner just to laugh at them for not knowing that they were there (!!!). This man would tell you that a certain nightclub owner (who was a sponsor) couldn't be trusted because he was a coke addict, while he himself was doing lines of coke in the business room. It was a movie, folks.

And you wonder where my cynicism comes from.

Like I said before, my own egocentric behaviour wanted to be the longest surviving member of KTYD. And I was. This totally noncommercial, really weird program of electronic and foreign music, mixed with sound collages and very odd humour...it should have died years ago. And yet, with all the format changes and other bullshit...it lasted. Why? Because the audience knew...far more than the sales wonks, that love it or hate it...it was the real deal. With all it's flaws, and I take full responsibility for its content...it was free. Freedom of choice. Freeform. No corporate strings were pulling the show. It was up to the audience. Here's the music. Do you like it or not?

So, with that, I let go of my desire to set a Guinness World Record for being the most noncommercial radio program on a commercial radio station; silently told coke-fuelled General Manager to go fondle his tiny penis...and went down the street to have the best radio job of my life.

For a while, at least. Then came the General Manager who thought the station should have a news helicopter, loved to drive the streets in the news car at 3.A,M.... like he was in the Batmobile, and would call me during Space Pirate Radio and tell me to play "Smuggler's Blues" by Glenn Frey.

Hey...any Space Pirate Radio listeners with tapes, remember "Smuggler's Blues" popping up somewhere between Tangerine Dream and Amon Duul 2? No? I didn't think so. Guess where that decision went? After dealing with so many chemical infused, ugly bosses, I didn't care about protocol anymore. When new toady boss called me during the show and told me to play "Smuggler's Blues," I said, "You can come in and play it yourself." "You're NOT going to play it?" he barks. And smart ass me sez to to Bossman, "In 20 years of Space Pirate Radio, no one has told me what to play in the show and you're not going to be the first. So come on in and play what you want and I'll go home. Otherwise go f...k yourself." Well, I was marked by then. He hired 3 program directors to fire me, but the first: I clued him to how he was actually going to hire the man who was going to replace him; the second was an LA pro who knew how successful Space Pirate Radio was and he wasn't going to let it go; the third was his hit man. I bet he liked "Smuggler's Blues."

The show remained faithful, as best as it could. But the background continued to be ugly. It was a business. And business was usual. Unfortunately, it was I who continued to remain unusual.

Sorry, old habits die hard.

"He's mad." "Mad?"

2011-03-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

Although I would love to write on a bunch of other topics, I find the illustrations I wish to use buried behind a wall, along with Edgar's cat and perhaps an ex-girlfriend or three. But digging around the old skeletons in the closet, I find it might still be fun to air out the room as we engage in psychic furniture re-arrangement. "What does this mean?" you might well not ask. Not sure. But hopefully the sonic screwdriver will help. (Isn't a sonic screwdriver, 2 parts vodka, 1 part orange juice and 1 part hedgehog?)

I admit that it took a certain madness to do Space Pirate Radio. An eccentricity that I am actually quite proud of. But true madness--not the Mad Magazine variety, but the ultra dark, I've just crossed over the border-line insanity type--this always belonged to the people in charge. Not a creative bone in their body; just a primal desire to control and run something and get back for all the trauma that happened in their childhoods. These types became General Managers at radio stations. :) If they used to like music, but forgot what inspired them and also dug the power, they became Program Directors or Music Directors. If your soul was completely washed out, but felt a toady thrill sucking up to the previously mentioned triumvirate of evil, you became a Sales Manager or more toady... Account Executive. Ready for a tour of Dante's Hell my friends? Well, let us descend...

(Suddenly Styx takes on a double meaning)..."It's another Classic Rock Weekend!"

Anyone who has travelled the halls of corporate power knows that the tiny people who sit behind the big desks in the opaque glassed rooms, sealed off by the doors of ancient sequoia redwood...these tiny people...are truly insane. But then again, those who have been down these halls and were somewhat impressed by the trappings of the golden calf...well, they were probably just jealous, and covetous and hoped to occupy the very same premises at an upcoming and future date. But I digress.

While doing Space Pirate Radio, I have certainly had the unusual pleasure (being ironic here) of "working for" some of the most "unique" (steam irony now) employers or bosses (take your pick)...well, carbon-based creatures that couldn't have popped out of a Dickens or Trollope novel better than Central Casting. As the years passed on, my wide-eyed enthusiasm for the power of the wireless was daily bombarded by the type of unsavoury character that kept the business of it all running.

It's been said that patriotism is the last refuge for the scoundrel. Then obviously the first refuge is Big Business. They go hand in hand, actually. So, for a while, in the Seventies...and then, in the wowie-zowie FCC de-regulated Ray Gun Eighties, radio was the game to play.

Where do I start? Should I even care? Blindfold me, spin me around and which bastard will I hit first? Tee-Hee. The best thing about this Hall of Darkness is that none of these people...and I mean NONE OF THESE PEOPLE...had a sense of humour, let alone a sense of reality, or the basic six senses (there are actually eight...and this could be the source of the problem...but folks, for me this comes off as a Sunday Parade feature rather than a thesis).

George Harrison's song "Piggies" could fit here regarding some of the General Managers I've worked for. Except, I always thought the term was an insult to the swine. Real pigs are far more sensitive and intelligent than the a-holes who were given command to broadcast to the community standard. The physical comparison can be made, but I'm sure real hogs are far more graceful than the paranoid jerks who fronted the mini-media empires they were entrusted to.

The difference here is probably because real pigs didn't do cocaine. Their snouts are used for sniffing food-like sustenance--not snorting cocoa-based powders from Columbia or wherever Free Trade exists.

Okay, it's starting to get dark and cynical here...so please scroll back and gaze upon the foto of my Top Cat, Emma! She is the current Queen of our six cat harem; the eldest since the passing of Serena. In between are the Brothers Karamazov and the latest lady, Six. ("You really are the limit, Number Six.") I'll talk more about cats later, but this was really an intermission in my tirade on the powers that run radio. I will say, most emphatically, that my cat Emma is far smarter than most of the General Managers I have worked for. She can actually cover over her own shit.

Since 1973 till 1985, KTYD went through so many ownership changes, yours truly is in a state of vertigo. The body count was worse than World War I. Usually some out of state group would buy the station, send their under achiever son to run it, and hoo-boy! Pure art and bad business would collide in a cosmic existential moment of Karl Marx meets William Randolph Hearst. Those were the days, folks!

I can recall doing a weekend show in the wee hours of the morning, only to hear the rattle of keys at the door (or were that rats nibbling at the portal?). Instead, I discover the drunken GM trying to locate his keys, entering the asylum, to find sanctuary in his big office (with the State Street view) to pass out in his over-stuffed chair, head down on the fake mahogany table (a must for those all important meetings of no importance). Leaving at 6am, assuming the morning jock arrived, which wasn't as often as one would wish, yours truly would view GM in a state of head paralysis (fake mahogany table, no substitute for comfy pillow). All part of the job description. But you know? Compared to some of the hyper-psychopaths I would work for later, this idiot was like Winnie the Pooh.

Anyway, I admit, it gave me a perverse pleasure to have Space Pirate Radio (which I believed was the most UNCOMMERCIAL radio show on the air) continue to survive, despite all of the commercial reshuffling that the station went through. At the time, this was my victory. This totally non-conformist, weird and alien program, with all the foreign, electronic crap, strange humour and noise would survive, while consultant paid, Arbitron ratings backed programming would fade and fade again. What gives? We paid good money for this book. Why is drive-time down? How come we lost 18 to 34-year-olds? What happened to female shares?

Well, if anyone is interested, I will tell you. And it's a ghost story.

"He tampered in God's domain."

2011-03-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

rien ici sacre continue...

As I once said in a local news article, I came to Santa Barbara from Orange County and the Pomona-West Covina area, hoping to do some free-wheeling theatre and innovative art in what (I thought) was a pretty progressive area. As it turned out, for every interesting show done in town, there were always five or more safe and tired productions rolled out of the mothballs. Primarily, this was because Santa Barbara was, in reality, North by Northwest Hollywood. It was still a business town made up of industry types who didn't want to live in Studio City. So a number of the drama teachers--particularly in the high schools--groomed their drama students with an eye on the agent and the deal and the contract. This is why I cherished Max Whittaker at SBCC. He loved the craft and the form and the work. The Art and Meaning of it all, rather than just the product and the Hollywood glamour attributed to it. This is not to say he wasn't in it for the professional. On the contrary. I feel he instilled a better appreciation for the craft than the surface dazzlers maintained. What's the quote? "The important thing is sincerity. And once you've learned to fake that..."

So, it's 1973..."I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet." I'm in this community of contradiction. Bohemians and war criminals. Santa Barbara. Certainly more liberal than Orange County or the San Gabriel Valley. And yet, in those environs, we did Marat/Sade and Bertolt Brecht and Vaclav Havel's The Memorandum and Arthur Miller and Oscar Wilde. Saint Babs loved to do musicals, Oklahoma and all the fifties chestnuts. I was sincerely bored here. I wanted to do new theatre or Shakespeare. Super classic or cutting edge. Again, thanks to Max Whittaker, this was possible. The young industry types dismissed Mr. Whittaker as out of touch, a recovered alcoholic who was out of step, not show biz savvy. Au contraire, mon swine. Mad Max was hipper than the lot. A smart, sensitive man, who would sacrifice his critical acclaim, if it benefited the student. He was a rare type...and as I've said before, his encouragement was an oasis in a desert of naysayers.

Perhaps, he let me be his tool of revenge against a bureaucracy that had not acknowledged his efforts. That's a nice poetic image, either way...real or imagined, he let me get away with it. Not once, not twice, but at least a half dozen times. And this time...we are taking down the powers that be...with GIANT CRABS!

So my monster movie childhood background comes back in full fury. Adults who didn't listen to kids...well we identified with Rodan. Nothing like a flying prehistoric monster, blowing away a paper mache Tokyo to get Mom and Dad's attention. Nothing is Sacred was my first full-blown stage production as writer/director. I had previously done what I called the first X-Rated play at SBCC, the one act Void in Wisconsin, for my Director's Class production. Featuring nudity and sapphic self-love between the same person, yet represented by two lovely women on stage, all driven by a pulsating rock soundtrack featuring Paul McCartney and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention...well under normal circumstances, this should be my last invite to use the auditorium. Not so. The success of Love Rides the Rails made it easier to GET AWAY WITH IT.

Nothing is Sacred was not, in the jargon of today, politically correct. You are in the bubble of the moment...and the moment is 1973. We are trying to break down the walls of control and repressed thinking that still had control on us. It's a Nixon world. It's been only a decade since JFK was gunned down in the lone star state. A Nightmare on Elm Street, indeed! And only 5 years since the near worldwide revolution of 1968. King and another Kennedy. What kind of neo-fascist lunacy was this? So we still felt there was a chance to change the dystopia into utopia. Dream on Flower Power People. The Fat Cats who ran the show behind gated communities continued. With unlimited resources and armies, both public and private...how could the little person find justice, let alone be allowed into the country club?

Through art. And humour. The tyrant never had a sense of humour. Sense means sensitivity. The thug isn't sensitive. All he senses is danger and retaliation. And the man who hires him, only senses power. Which comes from greed. So it has always been art and humour as a most popular form of defense against the jack boot. So what does this mean, kids? Get out your Karl Marx Kolouring Books and grab Saffron Crayon 1917...let's do some illustrating!

So we are in the bubble of the moment. Tonight, I watched with the wife the 1966 pilot episode of Ironside with Raymond Burr. In Nothing is Sacred, one of the TV satires was Iron Lung, Cripple Detective. I'd never seen a single show, yet in the pilot was all the elements of parody we did. They even said iron lung. Spooky. Also not PC was our gay Dating Game satire, Let's Make a Swish. I had a gay photographer friend who saw the show and thought the bit was hilarious. Bubble of the moment again. Today, I am far less homophobic than I was in the '70s, so I would tone the irony down. A sign of the times though showed, that in most written reviews of the play, this bit was considered one of, if not thee funniest in the show. I have NEVER used the term zeitgeist and will not use it here (albeit in an ironic mode).

And speaking of irony, and racism...there was the badly dubbed spaghetti western Never Trust A Blond Mexican. My first attack on Clint Eastwood, actor R. Leo Schreiber portrayed The Man With No Name...But A Lot Of Balls. "Senor Ballso," he was referred to by the other actors, who were previously recorded and attempting to badly lip-sync while on stage. Great fun, folks!

But what about those GIANT CRABS?

Well, they ended up being the main news story on the 11pm local news show, the Phill Phuddy report. Blatantly making fun of local news anchor Bill Huddy at the time, who had the reputation (real or exaggerated?) of kicking a few strong ones back at Harry's Cafe before facing the teleprompter...night after night the REAL Phil Phuddy would have to be replaced by a dummy automaton, to PHILL in ("chortle!") for the inebriated host. Ken Brigance played the dummy Phil, brought on by stagehands. Getting all the cues wrong. Entering phase lock loop like something out of Westworld meets David Brinkley. It was a hoot! Owl B.C. Ying U!

True story! The local news reviewed the play. Just before the drama reviewer did his piece, a stage light blew and the two anchors went into complete dis-array on air, live. They had an on air confusion moment that bordered pathetic and seriously embarrassing. They regain they're composure and begin their critique of Nothing is Sacred by saying the show doesn't understand the professionalism of the local news and how it runs. Absolutely parfait! Truly surreal. The parodied reality had now become a self parody. Like holding a mirror up to a mirror. The giggle is endless, curving off into infinity. This is why I do it, folks!

OK. OK. the GIANT CRABS.

So, the day of local TV ends up with the late night entertainment show, in this case The After Death Show with (g)host Post Mortem. Probably most inspired by the best work of the Firesign Theatre, I wanted to do my direction on this media surrealism. All through the production, the sound was pre-recorded except for the live dialogue. The plan here was this...The After Death Show was the late night show from beyond the grave. All of the guests had passed on from the TV world that had preceded it. Al Jolsen was a guest in blackface singing MacArthur Park (played by R. Leo Schreiber, sung by actor Tom Zeiher, who had played Dracula opposite my Renfield/Igor in Dracula, A Musical Comedy). But the finale of the show was the live--not pre-recorded--performance of Janis Joplin as portrayed by Shelley Pine (I think the program typo-ed her name and dropped the second e), along with her LIVE band.

And this is where the GIANT CRABS came in. In ultra frommage style, beyond Roger Corman, while Pearl belted out her Kosmic Blues, the GIANT CRAB claws grabbed yours truly, as Post Mortem, sitting behind his talk show desk. The CRAB CLAW (we only had one, as benefited a low budget schlockfest) crashed me into the break-away desk, we blew up the set like any decent Who show, and dropped the fake string of lights (which magically hit the falling drum cymbals, freezing the moment in an almost Rodin-like sculpture of controlled chaos). The dead people bit was meant to be more live than the live stuff. X is stencil ism. As Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason never said to me, "you get the cymbal ism, don't you?"

We didn't hurt the disco ball.

"We can make it better with a little bit of razzamatazz."

2011-03-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Mentioning my 1973 play Nothing is Sacred in the last entry has brought back thoughts about being daring and nutsy on stage during those early '70s. It was great, folks! A tremendous amount of freedom, again in thanks to Santa Barbara City College drama instructor Max Whittaker. The school would put on its regular productions and then allow the student run Theatre Guild to mount its own show. All of us at the time had been fortunate enough to be in involved in the comedy production of Love Rides the Rails. This old time melodrama had been hipped up enough (thanks to the cool direction by Mr. Whittaker) to be the most successful play in SBCC's Little Theatre history. I was Theatre Guild president at the time, so it was my desire to take the momentum of the first comedy and be more outrageous with the second.

Nothing is Sacred was meant to be a surreal day in television. In the spirit of the Firesign Theatre, Ernie Kovacs and the Goon Show, I wanted to try and go further--especially in visuals and sound. We were young and we had energy. Madness, really! Here's the proposal:

What would happen if the characters from the early morning kiddie show would carry on... through the matinee movie, into the afternoon soap opera, continue into the evening news, and then wind up in the late night entertainment show? And sandwich this story in the trappings of a day of trivial broadcast crap, done hopefully in provocative parody. Let's mix the chemicals and see what happens.

The main theme was centered on the cheezey Red Scare sci-fi film of the '50s, entitled Crabs, that was being played on the Ben Hummer Matinee Movie. A real parody, now long forgotten. The film, somewhat inspired by the actual movie, Attack of the Crab Monsters, focused on the dismal life of a man named David Typical. A person who, having been given a slight case of the crotch squirrels by his girlfriend, has the bad fortune of, while visiting his dentist for x-rays, having his lower jockey shorts area exposed to the radiation rather than his teeth. Are you following this so far? The radiation affects the infestation of crab lice and before you can scream "Jim Arness," the community is dominated (in a Bert I. Gordon sort of way) by giant mutated crabs. Why not, I say? It's only f..king Santa Barbara. A harbour town. Deal with it, you poncey bastards! You got CRABS. GIANT CRABS!!! And they're crawling on the Arlington Tower...the Granada Theatre building. All those oak trees (what else are you going to find for a forested pubis habitat)?

So the poor, hapless bastard becomes crab infested in the movie, winds up desperate for medical attention (that will NOT be given to him on the soap opera Cottage Cheese Hospital), generates giant crabs that will appear later on the incredibly mediocre and amateur local news...and finally wind up as guests (the giant crabs, that is) and destroying the late night talk and entertainment program...the After Death Show, with your (g)host...Post Mortem.

Cool!

I was fortunate enough to do this show with all the actors from the mega-successful Love Rides the Rails. The cast included R. Leo Schreiber, who had played the lead villain Simon Darkway to my side-kick henchman Dirk Sneath. He had the talent to assume a multitude of characters for this crazy production and gave his all in shape-shifting madness. It was fun times 2. Double Fun. He was great to work with, always on my wavelength, easy to direct and a solid character actor. Also in the cast was Sue O'Reilly (her married name) who later became Sue Dugan (her maiden name). A talented comic actress, who was also my girlfriend at the time. Like R. Leo, she had the ability to do a comic repertory. It was like doing SCTV before it happened. Sue could be a ten-year-old adenoidal child one moment and then turn into a fifty-year-old society matron the next. Also in the cast was Ken Brigance, a free spirited cat who could do Gabby Hayes meets Slim Pickens types on the spot. An artist as well. He drew the KCOW logo that would be the symbol of the show (Hee-hee! We shot down 2 out of three local crap network affiliates). Mary C. Webb, a lovely lady (pictured in the introduction as Sally Fetish, the Weather in Leather Girl); Billie Vrtiak, the solid actress with the delightful dark Jane Fonda-like shag haircut; and Frank Califano, one of the sweetest and most sensitive actors I ever met (like those character actors from the '40s who would play tough but were really children) rounded out the cast. This was a smart cast. We had come off the success of Max Whittaker's Love Rides the Rails, so feeling cocky, we wanted the party to continue.

And we still felt like creative anarchists. Santa Barbara, like certain other areas of the U. S. of Ah, was a certain contradiction. Extremely hip and free spirited in some ways, the city also housed the ultra-powerful--the types who stepped out of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett novel. People who had something to hide and could afford to hide it...found the Big Avocado a delightful community to step out of the limelight and merge peacefully in the sun drenched shadows. A community of oxymorons, if ever there was.

The Big Avocado. RIPE for parody. Fools Rush In...

"Your skin is very white." "My parents were white."

2011-02-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

I am an equal opportunity racist. Spinning wheels here in a Phil O' Sophocles moment (a double combo Irish-Greco racial slur...2 points), I am caught up in a contemplative monogram commenting upon the merits of the multi-ethnic joke of caricature. While I sip my Polish mixed drink (Perrier & water...1 point), let us revel in the world of banjos and watermelon, curry and lightbulbs, rabbis and mexicans, starched shirts and fortune cookies, eskimos who share, raiders of the lost arkies, inbreeders, russians with double chernobyls and matching moles, mops, wops and remember the Alamo. "Are there any groups I haven't offended yet?" (Quote: Mort Sahl before he became Geraldo Rivera.)

A mess o' thoughts here. Let's see if I can be Al Chemical (arcane reference combined with jazz-loving Kool smoker image..1 point only. Metaphysical references don't apply in score system in this case...rats!) and combine this stuff into pure gold, not lead.

This should be a panel discussion ("Nice panel. There...I discussed it."). But seriously, folks. What is the fine line between acting, art and insult, when portraying any ethnic group that is not your own? Where are the borders between Al Jolsen in blackface and Anthony Quinn (a Mexican) playing a Greek in Zorba, a Russian in The Shoes of the Fisherman and so forth? I remember during Space Pirate Radio, a Chinese lady was offended by Peter Ustinov playing Charlie Chan and told me as such. "But what about Peter Sellers?" I asked. "He has also played Chinese." Her response? And I swear, this is true. "But he's funny."

So there is the secret, folks! If you can keep it sublime and still elicit the yuk-yuks...banjos and buckteeth and bombay oil can still grab a giggle. "It's a small world, after all!"

On the radio, through the power of the imageless voice, I committed every ethnic slurpee you could drink of. Hee-hee! This was fun! Mea culpa. Mia Farrow. Mira Sorvino. I admit it!

On stage in 1973, in Nothing is Sacred, as well as on Space Pirate Radio in 1974 and on, I did the Karma Denominator. This Hindi Guru, the inventor of Cosmic Unconsciousness. The man who turned the Beatles Off and On to drugs. The pitchman for Krishna Krispies, the only breakfast cereal that didn't snap, crackle and pop, but rather chanted Hare Krishna. And when you added milk, your bowl looked like the sacred Ganges river. (Karma is pictured above, appearing on the Ben Hummer Matinee Movie.) And in the same play we did a parody of spaghetti westerns called Never Trust A Blonde Mexican (a double slap...2 points).

Or back to Space Pirate Radio and Doctor Wu-Who? The Time Lord who didn't have two hearts but two bladders. "Come in handy on long trips. Notice in re-Tardis, there are no bathrooms. No kitchen, for that matter. Anyone ever get peckish?"

Or Wally Wang, who could teach you the art of foreclosure and fiveclosure and sixclosure? "It could just go on forever."

On Space Pirate Radio in the '70s, I played a record by Yellow Magic Orchestra, an import that dealt with a Watergate-like scandal that had happened in Japan. The YMO members did a comedy sketch on the bribes and corruption that had been exposed in the Japanese government. In English, though released in Japan, the YMO members mocked the Japanese head of state, saying how stupid the Japanese people were, calling them yellow monkeys and commenting on the size of their genitalia. An Asian women heard me play this and mistakenly assumed it was me doing a bad racist comedy bit. She called me and claimed that it was in horrible taste and that I as a Guy-Jin, shouldn't be doing such a racist bit of comedy. I told her, it may be racist...but that it was done by Japan's number one musical group and that the offensive album I was playing had been the number one selling album for several weeks in Japan. Knee jerks. In one of the few times KTYD stood behind me, this reactionary was told to check the facts before going into boil over mode.

So, if I am a racist in my humour, than it must be admitted that I hate dumb white Americans. When I make fun of neo-Nazis and KKK types, I must hate all Caucasians. If I parody Nixon (who hated just about everybody... Jew, black, Mexican, Communist and gay), well, I must be attacking Quakers. If Rush Limbaugh was black (Rush Limbo) or Glenn Beck was Italian (Glenn Bikini)...now that could have been ugly.

Otherwise, just look at recent news. Your friendly tyrant of yesterday, is your enemy of today...and vice versa. Nothing changes. Nothing personal. It's just business. And me? So sorry. Closed for the day. Ran out of whatever I was supposed to sell you. Useless goods. Over a hundred dollars a barrel. Have I got you over a barrel? No. But someone else has.

Daily shooters at the Ali Ak Bar & Grill (...1 point).

"Morgan is sad today. Sadder than yesterday."

2011-02-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

Thinking back to the early days of the Diamond Bar Players has gotten me in an old theatrical mood. I loved the drama classes in high school, but my constant fights with authority took away my enthusiasm for the academic life. When I was at John A. Rowland High in Rowland Heights, CA, I wanted to be treated like a college student. Dress in my mod, chord jacket and turtleneck look and pursue a career in English literature, speech and drama. But I kept running into battles with the principal and some uptight P.E. coaches over hair length and dress code. And this is where they lost me. The rather moderate academic being created into the subversive radical. The suburban anarchist. I had some very cool teachers. Looking back now, it is easier to tell the more free thinking staff from the closeted (and I mean this is in an almost gothic sort of a way), neurotic stick-up-the ass instructors who brought their hidden home abuses and inflicted them upon the tiny pets that they make bark and cower. It is very clear. The storm trooper types hated clever. Or at worst, the smart ass. But most of all, in these hallowed halls of learning, they despised any student who asked questions. You were only supposed to have the answers to questions that had already been asked, with only one correct conclusion. NEVER ask a question that hasn't already been answered. Only in this way can true progress be controlled.

So there were the cool teachers. I wish I could go back and talk to some of these people now and see how they really lived. I remember that the hip ones were drama teachers, English teachers, an occasional eccentric math teacher or the cool sports instructors, the gymnastic cats. An anecdote here: I hated physical education. Year after year, freezing my nuts off in the morning drizzle, while neanderthal coaches, heavily bundled, drank their coffee and told us to do laps. Swine! Slacker whiffs of Leni Riefenstahl. Showering with smelly alpha-males. Jock-straps shot like sling shots. Is this how civilized people live? I hated it. But I had a good yet goofy friend in Diamond Bar named Brian Brumby who never had to attend a P.E. class in his life. How? Because he signed up as a coach's assistant, attending all the after school games. Football. Baseball. Basketball. Doing the stats and such, and coming home after six or seven p.m. on the last bus. By my Senior year, I realized this was the way to get out of the army. No more sit-ups for me. What sport wasn't taken up my friend Brian? Gymnastics. Section 8, sign me up.

And trust me, the cool guys were the coaches on this sport. Individual achievement as opposed to team sports. The coach didn't give a fart about my longer than normal blonde hair. As long as I could write what the high jump numbers were in the little book, that's all that mattered technically. And the assistant coach was a Bryan Ferry looking like cat who I'm sure read Playboy and had a liquor cabinet next to his folk records or Blue Note jazz collection. I recall having conversations about his previous night's escapade with some bird de jour. I may be reading more into this than was real, but I do know it was the uber-butch baseball coach, who kept bitching about me having my hair too long and sending me over to the principal's office to get a reality check. I probably reminded him of his ex-girlfriend. Or...?

Anyway, to make a long story longer...my thanks to the cool teachers. The others, being so uncool, must find the heat excessive. I will come back to these moments. Examples of this kind of madness popped up in junior high. High school definitely changed the equation. I lost a sense of discipline until two colleges later. At Santa Barbara City College in the Drama Department, that early love of academia returned. I got it in the Speech class as well, but I was still uninterested in all other required subjects. Coming around to my original inspiration for this entry was the fact that only in the drama classes were we (in an artistic sense), able to ask the questions that did not have a preordained answer. Call it a liberal bias if that's your hang-up, but the questioning of authority seemed to be in the drama department.

My first play at SBCC was the distinctly anti-war work, Bury the Dead. A drama in the spirit of Orson Welles' Mercury Players, this almost Brechtian meets Rod Serling production considered the possibility of war dead refusing to die and being martyred and ultimately forgotten for the sake of war profiteers. I was one of the undead.

Later we did The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, another pacifist play. Then later, Abelard & Heloise, on suggestion from yours truly, who had seen the show done in Los Angeles with Diana Rigg and Keith Michell.

A quick slide back to the tyrants who ruled the high school. Our school had a principal whose last name sounded very close to the word Anus. Well, this Anus kept suspending me for my ultra cool Illya Kuryakin look of wearing my blonde hair slightly over the ears, and not buzz-cut on the neck like I just landed off of Iwo Jima. So I was suspended just before the end of my Senior year. I trimmed my cool mod looks down to a slightly "I've just been released from Baden-Baden camp thanks to the Allies" look by wearing a low cut shirt rather than my usual turtleneck. Anus sez, "Well, that's good enough ('guden auf') to get back into class. But you will have to cut it again for Graduation. You can't look like that if you want to get your diploma." My response? "Mail it to me."

A further side note regarding principal Anus. Long after I left the multi-purpose rooms of John A. Rowland and was doing my thing in Santa Barbara, I saw my old alma mustard mentioned in the news regarding a political embarrassment. It seemed the high school band had been invited to play at President Richard M. Nixon's arrival at not-so-nearby Ontario airport. A band member, not being a fan of Tricky Dick, but still having to play for the Fearless Leader's arrival, felt he would show his right to dissent by placing a McGovern sticker in his tuba horn bell. The result from my former principal Anus...total expulsion from high school...and those rip roarin' raiders. You can't write better drama than this. I wonder where my Anus is today? He seemed to give us all PILES of trouble.

Drama folks. It started with the Greeks, maybe earlier. The Trojan Women or Johnny Got His Gun. Liberal Arts. Me likee.

"No, thanks. Bad luck. Three on a midget."

2011-02-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day, folks. "Love is in the air." And it's stuck on the bottom of my shoe as well. Seriously, folks. I was going to write more about Space Pirate Radio, but I thought in honour of the holiday I would keep it light and airy. So we are back in the re-Tardis and voila! We are in Diamond Bar, CA 1969. Look, my first car. The Melting Watchtowre has now presented photographs of all three cars that I've purchased in my life. Los Trios Autos Blancos. I believe it's a 1964 Volkswagen. But with the onset of senility, it could be a 1962. I'm not that sure anymore. I do know that I had to have a Bug because it was the hip, bohemian car to own. It never sunk in that Adolf Hitler promoted this car. "The people's car." The Volks Wagen. A free spirited, hippy girl I knew at the time had one, so I was just a copycat. My car was a bit different, though, as it had actually been a grey model which had been in a wreck and had been repainted white. This made the front interior grey, rather than the normal interior for the white Bugs of the time. Grey being my favourite colour, this made my Bug a special travel machine. Any VW owner knows: a snug fit, a funky shift and the sound of driving a washing machine. No silent escapes from a late night tryst in that car. Dig this. I even had one of those label maker stickers on the glove compartment. It was a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet: "But He that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail." What do you expect? In 1968, Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet had been released and we all thought we were Shelley With A Stick Shift. We drove madly down the San Bernadino freeway, guided by the image of Olivia Hussey.

Diamond Bar, folks. I lived there when the city first began. A former ranch located north of Orange County and south of Pomona, it became incorporated in the mid-60s with one set of track houses at the south end and another set of track houses at the north end. Brea Canyon Road twisted up from Fullerton and Brea into what seemed like an urban version of Borgo Pass from Dracula. The rolling hills dotted with oak and walnut trees reminded yours truly of being in Mario Bava's Black Sunday. It was quiet. Deer would come down from the hills and drink in the fountain that welcomed the weary traveler into this new Stepford community. For a while it really was tranquil. An escape from the madness of Orange County. Ugh, Orange County. Flat and Republican filled. A place where its sense of history was re-fabricated in Disneyland. Every street corner was the same. Three gas stations and an Alpha Beta. I used to say to people that if they wanted to get rid of me, all they would have to do is break my glasses, put me on any corner (like Beach Blvd.) and I would never know where I was. But I digress.

So Diamond Bar became a refuge for this young man with flights of fantasy. I left the Alcatraz-like environment of Fullerton Union High School and began my sophomore year at the fresh, multipurpose room adobe of John A. Rowland High School, located in the dreamlike community of Rowland Heights, CA. Home of the rip roarin' Rowland Raiders, this unique learning establishment tried its best to change European-styled yours truly, Guy de Maupassant--man of letters and culture--into my actual namesake, Guy Madison--branding, tumbling cowpoke. This made for an amusing clash; a mutation of merriment, which I will discuss in detail later.

Diamond Bar was the home of the illustrious Diamond Bar Players. A high spirited group of theatricals nestled in this quaint community, I auditioned for them and they were impressed by my youthful Orson Welles-like vocal gymnastics. I suckered them, folks. And like Dick Powell in those Busby Berkeley films, for a while, I became their perennial juvenile. I did a number of plays for them: George S. Kaufman stuff like The Solid Gold Cadillac; Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, playing psycho red herring Christopher Wren (pictured); and a piece of fluff called Slice It Thin. Acting in these productions got me in prison. Of which, I mean, this little group was invited to bring our humble productions to all of the illustrious penal institutions conveniently located near our dream community. Besides doing our productions in one of the local schools, we would hit the road and go on tour, bringing our little repertory company to the entertainment starved felons of the Chino Institute For Men, the Norco Narcotics Rehabilitation Center, and (my favourite) the Corona Womens Prison. Let me tell you, folks, a young man's hormones can light up the imagination when you're in The Big Bird Cage or Cell Block H. Young girls holding hands would give the heavily made-up Illya Kuryakin looks of invitation. You could feel the subdued power of tension in this incredible B-rated drive-in movie. The facility in Norco was an interesting place--a former posh hotel resort turned into institution. My companions wondered why I kept humming the theme from the Great Escape as we entered through the gates. Chino was interesting as well. I remember the male lead who looked like Jack Cassidy being made-up by one of the inmates, heavily tattooed and rugged. As he was being shaved and powdered for his role, the slighty nervous lead asked the man, "so what are you in for?" As the blade trimmed the actor's neck, the inmate replied, "I murdered my wife." There was no need to powder the actor's face. He had become white enough.

Ah, the memories come flooding back. The problem of poor plumbing at this age. Diamond Bar in the early days before it became the inspiration for the TV series Weeds. It all went to hell when they put the Orange Freeway in. And all those special folks got smog-trapped within the once beautiful but now barren hills. It was time to rethink the area after the Pomona Freeway became an alternative route into Los Angeles, instead of the previous choices of the Santa Ana Freeway or the San Bernadino Freeway (which I tended to use the most). I left in 1970 and have not returned to Diamond Bar for even a visit. My wife has heard enough stories about the area. And when I've had more psychic courage, have told her that perhaps we should look and see how much it has all changed. Personally, I'm afraid the shock would kill me and that's why it hasn't happened so far. So we look at the photos instead and share a few mildly amusing anecdotes.

By the way, before I owned the first white car, I had a motorcycle. It was a Bridgestone 90. I thought I was a midget version of Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. Do you hear it? Do you hear it? There's that theme again. The thrill of driving in those pre-helmet days on the highways near Walnut, CA. There's nothing more fun than having some big green bug squash in your mouth. One bug leads to another.

"We got the message. I heard it on the airwaves."

2011-02-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

Okay kids. I am here all alone writing in my tower of darkness. Just finished watching Tamara Drewe, the Stephen Frears film about writers and sex. Love writers. Love sex. Love writing about sex. Pathetic, really...and going off course again. Always love talking about writers. And speaking of writers, we just celebrated the 183rd birthday of Jules Verne this week. The father of science fiction. So who was the mother? Captain Nemo was always a sort of radical hero to me in my youth. James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea. Or Herbert Lom in Mysterious Island. And the character Vincent Price played in Master of the World. All very early anti-war characters.

Question: If Captain Nemo wrote poetry on board of the Nautilus...would he be considered sub versive?

And so I had hoped to carry this Nemonic spirit into the wireless world of Space Pirate Radio. What does this all mean, you might well ask? Good question. I am still caught up in the nostalgia of the show that happens around this time of year. It seems like a dream...that's got me hypnotised. It was a dream. A dream show. A dream I wanted to share with friends. I was never motivated by profit. Never. Ever. If I was, I wouldn't be here now. I'd be unreachable, and soulless and most likely dead. That is not to say I wasn't a hustler. I was. I just wasn't very good at it. I hustled enough to get my mad projects floating, but not greedy enough to turn them into an empire. Never was empirical. Utopian, yes. Dystopian, no. Dystope addicts. There are enough of those folks around to sap all of the oxygen out of the room. In the early days, all the PROFESSIONALS said Space Pirate Radio was lunacy. "No Commercial Potential," as someone I once artistically encountered was quoted. When the avant-avant garde became commercially viable, well... that was another story folks! Once the crazy cult program was a commercial viability, the number of people in the room changed dramatically. "Sounds a tad bitter, Steve?" You bet kiddies. The circle of friends or the cool commune becomes a convention center. Check out time: 12 noon (or 11am...don't you just hate those hotels?). The New Age Hustlers. Do you want a list? It's Adolphe Menjou or Robert Taylor testifying before the House.

Captain Nemo. What a man. Hello, sailor. "Are you a Matalot?" I can hear Charles Trenet singing "La Mer." Or Debussy. (I don't think Debussy ever sang "La Mer." Well, maybe after a couple of absinthes. Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.) Pirates.

Well, there was a sort of master plan here. It weathered many stormy changes and transmutations and an ever changing of the guard. Let me go into details...I will name names. :) Happy birthday, Captain Nemo. And to Jules Verne El-Equinox. And looking on birthdays for Thursday February 10th, I noticed that both Glenn Beck and Bertolt Brecht share that date. Talk about yin and yang. Beck and Brecht. Sounds like a rock band or hair shampoo.

But first, the other week, I was down by the harbour...and a couple of wharfs called out and said, "hey Guy, we loved the show...and we're glad to see you doing your thing on the blog." I was touched to hear the wharfs say this. It is always a pleasure to be recognized by your piers.

Now the story so far...

Paul Latex of Danzig (...the Paul Latex of OOO feeling good...) :)

"What a rush!"

2011-02-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hello folks again. Bouncing around like a lunatic. Too active for a man of my age. Stuck in the re-Tardis with my companion. Time tripping too much. The day is not long enough. My dance card is full. Have been zipping back to early Space Pirate Radio days; snapping back to present time and current affairs; new artistic projects and the latest film fare. Too many subjects catching my interest. Trying to focus and narrow down to one. Others I would like to do; can't find the photos. Frustrated galore. So I slip into 1976. But the lovely wife mentions stack of current films on table. Like old Mad Magazine satire, "this takes me off on a Tangent." Better than "driving off in a Huff." What started all this? A comment regarding watching the new Tyler Perry film, For Colored Girls. Wife wants to watch it. That's fine with me. I don't have time to see every film that comes my way. Let's say, maybe, on average, there are 25 new dvd releases a week. From all that, I will probably ignore most of the major releases and all the crappy, bottom drawer, straight-to-video, psycho killer films, in preference to the foreign titles and movies with story, an interesting subject matter, personal favourites in the character actor department, and anything that has a feel of modern day Eurotrash. This means, at best, I will see 1 movie a night; 7 out of the 25 per week. This leaves 18 lingering in the background. Also, my personal fetisihes may deem that one of the films I have purchased for myself and is not a current release will take priority. So it's possible to say that the 7 new movies drop down to 5 or 4. Ultimately, I will have seen more films by Jesus Franco and yet can proudly claim that I have never seen a film by James Cameron. Oh my god. It's true.

"Where are we going with this?" asks my wife. Glad you asked, thank you. It was your comment, dear wife, regarding the fact that the aforementioned For Colored Girls was getting bad reviews, mostly from male viewers. This, of course, ties into my constant horror of watching couples fight over movie choices. The poor female enters the establishment, hoping that her alpha-male companion will not protest too much over her desire to see Letters To Juliet. As in most cases, this does not go unnoticed. "I don't wanna watch any CHICK flick!" tattooed grease monkey screams. Being sensitive to the hidden pain of the poor lady, her eyes moistening, but mouth silent for fear of the belt...yours truly, the ever constant smart ass, interjects to the mini gorilla male, "Oh, then you want to see a DICK flick." This results in a moment of stunned silence, a slight look of confusion or possible homicidal anger from aforementioned gorilla, and a faint flicker of eye contact from the silent female; a glimmer of hope that her father confessor has understood her inner turmoil. "Can this elderly man understand my needs and not be an interior decorator?" "Yes, my child," I say to her silently, letting her kiss my ring. "Men, they are a useless bunch. Except for one obvious appendage, what do women see in them? I understand, my child. I am a lesbian."

So for those of you who worship at the small statue of Schwarzenegger and Stallone; those of you who suck at the vulva of Van Damme; nibble at the nob of Norris; and measure your manliness in the magnificence of your Magnum: I say in the ancient Chinese wisdom of Yoda and Pat Morita, "Fung Goo." You are not worthy to be in the shadow of the lady you walk with.

What is it with these men? Why in the hell would any man, after a hard day rotating tires, laying linoleum or putting some unwanted person in cement, feel the urge to relax with a cacophony of greased up, hyper-steroided, badly tattooed, alpha-males, shoving sawed-off shotguns down the throats of various ethnic groups, while smashing their 4 wheeled trucks through plated glass windows? Doesn't any man enjoy seeing a beautiful woman who is not wrapped around a strip pole or relating to another human being without a handgun punctuating the conversation? Call me old-fashioned, but I can still enjoy a non-high octane moment with a glint of leg.

Now where was I?

Oh yes. In 1976 I had the opportunity to produce a play of mine called Casanova's Lips. How did this come about? Well, it's a kind of funny story and it begins this way...

"My time. My time. I love my time. My time has something more..."

2011-01-31T21:53:00.000-08:00

"...My time's the best there's ever been..."

Hello folks. Hello folks at world. Sorry folks, but as the first month of the year winds up, I'm still in thoughts regarding anniversary time of Space Pirate Radio. Thinking back to that first show of 1974, as I did last week, I noticed during this week remembrances for the Challenger disaster, marking the 25th anniversary. Ye gods! Has it been that long? Remembering the Challenger incident puts me back to the week of the show's 12th anniversary celebration. (I still remember at the time that there seemed to be a mixture of sadness with celebration. The Challenger accident happened on January 28th. During festivities for the show's anniversary, Frank Herbert, the sci-fi author of Dune, passed away on February 11th.) Anyway...as nice as the 10th anniversary party was for the show when it was on KTYD, the 12th anniversary on Y97 was the most satisfying.

The poster contest theme continued. Mike Merenbach, the artist who had started with the 8th anniversary, had come up with a contemplative sci-fi image. Looking at it now, I am amazed that it sort of predates the kind of image of Coruscant from the Star Wars films yet to come. Looking backwards now, the Space Pirate Radio ship could easily be docked next to any Republic cruiser. So I was surprised by the incredible variety of entries submitted using that image.

I had secured the premises of Zelo (the hip, happening club in Santa Barbara) for the festivities. The number of entries turned the restaurant/nightclub into an art gallery. There were a large number of prizes for the most creative entries. Although there was a grand prize winner, there were a number of other awards for merit to imaginative submissions of the poster design. I don't think the prizes were as important to the artist as it was to create something unique with the Space Pirate Radio image. The main winner was a very unique 3D diorama, but other entries included giant stand-ups, sculptures created out of Tiffany-like plastic, and one that was an actual rocket that could be shot off. It was all quite amazing. Very surreal. And hopefully a giggle for everybody.

Again, for me, I received the most personal satisfaction with this anniversary party for Space Pirate Radio. It was everything I felt should have happened during the 10 years at KTYD. Zelo had never done any promotion with a radio station up to this time. It was a bit of a coup. And thankfully it was a major success for the club, resulting in even more well attended later engagements. The party was covered by local media, as evidenced in the photo with KEYT TV reporter, Lance Orozco, doing the interviewing. Lance was a terrific fellow and had previously brought his camera to an all-night Space Pirate Radio show for a TV feature. Pardon my gloating, but I was a media whore then. As an Arts & Entertainment editor as well as a performer, I understand what it's like to be on both sides of the microphone. I appreciated Lance's work, as well as newsman John Palminteri, who also covered the event. I have the fondest memories of working with these news professionals.

On a psychological test I took in high school, I scored with a number zero, determining that I was a complete ambivert: introverted in thought and extroverted in action. So what the hell does that mean here? Not sure, but basically although I prefer the introverted creation of Space Pirate Radio in the studio, these extroverted moments of public celebration are a heck of a lot of fun. And besides, it's good to get out every now and then.

"...My time. I love my time. Thank you my time."

"Because all you of Earth are idiots!"

2011-01-24T21:26:00.000-08:00

When Saturday night January 26, 1974 became Sunday morning January 27th, something unusual happened to American commercial radio. At midnight, the pop rock world of Elton John and Fleetwood Mac faded out and a sci-fi rock soundtrack to a rave on Altair IV began. Yours truly introduced the excursion with words something to the effect saying, "You are now going to hear the weirdest music you have ever heard in your life." And the sounds of Hawkwind's "Earth Calling" from the album Space Ritual took over the airwaves of KTYD 99.9 Santa Barbara. It was a test flight, but Pandora was definitely out of the box. I knew I was in the deep end, but my crazed enthusiasm to share with the world the exciting new sounds from Europe as well as the eccentric audio delights from my own twisted background made me unaware of the lack of a safety net.

It was a trip, man. But the show was just formulating. In those six hours on that magical Sunday morning, a lot of music was shared, old and new. I was ecstatic to be the first to play the new Amon Duul II album Viva La Trance, not heard on commercial radio. The album was due for release on the upcoming Tuesday and it was my first joy of delving through the just arrived promo stack at the station. We knew, as fans of this little known German band, that the album was coming out and I hoped and prayed that I would find this album in the stack of newly arrived LPs under the music director's desk. Before starting the show, I scavenged through the treasure trove of vinyl and came upon two copies of the holy grail. Ah, folks, it was great to be young and feel the charge of playing "Apocalyptic Bore" and "Mozambique." Monitors full volume, blasting Chris Karrer's space guitar out of the window on the eighth floor of the Granada Theatre building. It was my tiny fist raised to heaven, banishing the airwaves in the city of the red tiles, exorcising the demon spirit of soft rock, homeboy Mike Love and the "where are my royalties?" current state of commercial rock music. It was, for me, audio revolution. There was Something In The Air and we utopians felt it came in the form of progressive music.

In those six hours, I tried to give an example of every musical taste I was into. Hard rock. Deep space. Old and new. Old songs that sounded new. The Beatles. "Astronomy Domine" by Pink Floyd. Lounge music. Attempts at comedy. And trying to break down the cliche of Top 40 radio. Changing the fourth wall of theatre in the arena of sound.

And like the music I played, the show progressed or evolved as well. On early shows, I would back announce the titles of record and artist. By the summer of '74, I would completely abandon the interruption of the mix of sounds by the traditional DJ. I wanted the program to be a sonic experience. And although I knew the information regarding work and performer is important to the listener, I felt that the show as an experience should be uninterrupted. Or that musical themes and experimentation could develop without the old school "and now a word from our sponsor" type of format. It was obvious that I intended to make the show as uncommercial as one could be on a commercial radio station. Now there's a challenge, folks. For the casual listener, this could be frustrating. But for most of the audience who used the show for their own personal purposes or loved to tape the program, the complete experience was far superior. Personally, I felt the least comfortable being myself at the beginning of the show, but I would generally give out the information as to what was to be played and other pertinent bits. The genuine pleasure for me was when I could let my real personalities come out in the various guises throughout the show. As I had discovered in theatre, it is perhaps easier to place an opinion wrapped in comedy than to blatantly hit you over the head with it. I prefer a laugh over a scream and find it subversive. Most bullies don't have a sense of humour. And you can slip it past them like a truck in the night.

My intentions were never to screw with the listener. I felt that if you were tuned in, you were a friend. And even though I did some extremely over the top things on the air, I never intended to become like the asshole shock jock-types that would later dominate the world of corporate radio. I didn't force someone to drink too much on an early morning, drive-time show and drown and die just to get a free t-shirt. That's not what I intended radio to be. You had freewill. You could tune in or out, if you liked. As I said, if you listened and stayed, you were a friend and you were hip as to who the real enemies were. That was the plan.

And of course, the whole thing binding it all together was the discovery of new music. It was meant to be a trip. Scenic, illuminating and hopefully...with comfortable seating.

"Why do you ask, Little Hole in Rubber?"

2011-01-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

We now enter the Swinging '60s (entries, that is). Guaranteed to offend. The early 1960s were, for some strange reason, the era of the sick joke. So in that spirit, we step inside the re-Tardis.

With the success of the film The King's Speech, we are happy to see a renaissance of the British film company, Stammer Films. Who can forget The Cur-Cur-Cur-Cur-Curse Of Fran-Fran-Fran-Fran-Frankenstein or The Hor-Hor-Hor-Hor-Horror Of Dra-Dra-Dra-Dra-Dracula? How about the Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-ME? I'm excited.

I was wondering. If Carmina Burana composer, Carl Orff, and Rolling Stone photographer, Annie Leibovitz had grown up at the same time and had been childhood friends, would they have been known as Little Orff & Annie.

Question: Which of the following does not belong:

Lobster
Crab
Octopus
A Korean underneath the wheel of a Toyota truck

Answer: 3. Octopus. All of the others are crustaceans.

Guaranteed to offend.

Favourite poem from my childhood:

Ruth rode on my motorbike
Directly back of me.
I hit a bump at sixty-five
And rode on, Ruthlessly.

The photo? An early picture of me using a cell phone in my car. It was a trunk call.

"You've a magnificent brain, Moriarty."

2011-01-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

The recent passing of Gerry Rafferty has sent me back again to Baker Street, London. Every time I hear the song, it's summer 1982. When I returned to the US and would see the video, the street shots were all very familiar, including the comfortable Sherlock Holmes Hotel. It's been quoted that "when a man is bored with London, he is bored with life." So is the reverse true? If a man is bored with life, is he bored with London? Or going even further: "If a man is bored with his wife, is he bored with Lisbon? And is she Lizzie Borden?" Philosophical questions like these keep me up at night. But I digress.

Legs. Has it been made apparent that I am a leg man? Partial to legs, but not to partial legs. I'm not one of those amputee fetishists. But I digress, again. Legs. They move me. And those that move with them, as well. A remaining vision of mine, traveling the Underground from Baker Street station, were the noticeable ads in the tunnels (promoting what I believed to be were safety pins but I guess were stockings), using the power of glistening gams. You couldn't not notice them during your travels in the tunnels. London advertising has always been an art form.

In my business of the film world, discussions on actors are always frequent. Lately, I have found many friends, acquaintances and clients have asked my opinion of Gary Oldman. It is known that I am partial to English actors, but in an attempt not to repeat my Michael Caine/Harry Brown moment, I try not to be as excessive in my lack of awe regarding Mr. Oldman's talents. I quickly try to diffuse the subject by attempting to impress the unfortunate listener into hearing my Gabby Hayes sounding-like, ancient tale that I saw Gary Oldman on the stage in 1982, prior to his film career. I went to the Lyric Theatre in Shaftesbury to see Glenda Jackson and Georgina Hale in the play Summit Conference. This little West End truffle put forth the fictitious luncheon between the mistresses of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. I admired the two actresses tremendously and did not want to miss the opportunity of seeing them in person. After all, both of them had made early appearances in Ken Russell movies. My main objective was to meet Georgina Hale whom I had taken a fancy to in The Devils, Mahler and The Boyfriend. I wanted her to appear in my Space Pirate Video pilot.

In the production, the third member of the cast and only male actor was an angst-ridden young man who portrayed a Nazi servant to the two ladies. This was Gary Oldman. His performance was that of a cipher, always in the background, except for one explosive sequence of philosophical rage. It was a sort of Marat/Sade theatrical moment. I had no inkling that this person would become as big of a film star as he did.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. I had attended the Wednesday matinee and was invited backstage into Georgina Hale's dressing room. I was delightfully starstruck. She wore a colourful dressing gown designed, I believe, by Ken Russell's wife, Shirley. Very art deco. She agreed to do my TV show and I scampered off around the corner to the famous Windmill Theatre to continue my explorations. The Windmill Theatre was the famous strip club and starting ground for Goon Show comedians Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. In regards to my other project, the Peter Sellers documentary, the theatre was an archaeological site for me as it had had a plaque with the names of those who had gotten their start on these boards. Sellers and Secombe (I'm not quite sure about Milligan) were on this plaque, but it had gone missing. As it turned out, the Windmill Theatre had been bought by the notorious Paul Raymond (the Hugh Hefner of England), whose adult magazines like Men Only had turned into Club magazine in the US. He was known for creating the Paul Raymond Revue Bars, a place to see beautiful women in various states of undress, and the Windmill Theatre was undergoing a change into the same. It was quite amazing to me--perhaps due to an abundance of confidence and goodwill--that I was given free access to the place while Mr. Raymond and his associates checked the building for renovations. His assistant manager accompanied me throughout the theatre in a hopeful attempt to find the lost ark: the plaque of the Goons to be. Alas, it was not found by myself, but the attempt was a good one and it was a marvelous experience to be going through such an incredibly historic theatre. As I left the building, actor Peter Vaughan drove by in his convertible, fresh out of his matinee around the corner. The air was filled with theatricals. Such is the magic of Shaftesbury Avenue, the Broadway of London's West End.

I was really pleased at the kind of pastoral way this entry was ending. Sort of gentle, nostalgic, not manic. "What do you think, darling? Good ending?" "But what about Gary Oldman?" "Oh." Well, remember when I said that for every really good Michael Caine film, there were three or more horrible ones? In retrospect, I think I may have been wrong. Looking back, there are an awful lot of Michael Caine films I really like. As much as I hate the Jaws films and the Poseidon Adventure remake and The Bees and all the commercial crap Michael did, there are the films that I am fond of. And the whole Michael Caine mythos (blond hair, black horn-rimmed glasses), which is similar to the David McCallum mythos. Images relating to my youth. But as a body of work, for myself personally, Gary Oldman's odds are much worse than Michael Caine's. Probably my favourite Oldman performance is as Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK. Except for a few artistic touches, I can't stand his Dracula. Totally miscast. I don't know what blood he's been drinking, but it's definitely syphilitic. His Vlad the Impaler is more Vlad the Inhaler. Too many of his performances are in the area of coke-fueled lunatic. It's like somebody has hooked up a battery to his anus. And he spits on everyone. Can't actors annunciate words without throwing out tons of spittle? I'm seriously bored here. Can anybody take the Book Of Eli seriously? I couldn't finish Rain Fall. He strikes the same one note in The Professional as in all of these films. Shrill. No subtlety. I suddenly realise how brilliant George Zucco was. Villiany should be low-key. "He may smile and smile and still be a villian." Like Dick Cheney. George Zucco. Moriarty. And we've come full circle.

Sorry about the loss of the pastoral.

"Time for my perversion?"

2011-01-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Oh god. Not another photo from the very early years. I thought that last one was far too much of a flashback. Here we are even earlier. A romantic encounter it would seem. Looks like I'm being stood up again. My charm is working overtime. She's (card) bored silly. This is in fact an example of developing teenage sexual angst and obsession. The woman pictured is actress Andrea Dromm. A blonde cutie whose 15 minutes of fame included doing two famous commercials: one for Summer Blonde hair dye and the other for National Airlines. She was John Phillip Law's love interest in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, and her tagline for National Airlines, "Come Fly With Me," was punned into the Troy Donahue-helmed spy spoof, Come Spy With Me. Other males discovered her in Star Trek. But since I wasn't a Trekker, that appearance had no impact on me (though I'm sure I would have appreciated the mini).

Anyway, this segues into my fundamental pursuit of the muse. Although I was attracted to all types of women, there was something romantic at the time in the belief that you would find someone who looked similar to you. Blonde on blonde. This myth had been fortified by the image of David McCallum with wife Jill Ireland, and Brian Jones with lookalike girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. Although in retrospect, this might come off as sort of an Aryan vision of a lovefest. Our children would look like the cast of Village Of The Damned. Midwitch cuckoos, indeed. Little blonde go-go girls were all the rage anyway. Patti Boyd and Judy Geeson. Ewa Aulin in Candy. That sort of thing.

Of course, as one gets older, the adage "Gentleman prefer blondes. Gentleman marry brunettes" seems to apply (the only exception to this rule would be Hugh Hefner, who seems to have peroxide running through his blood).

Well, I'm glad to say that despite all the changes in my life, I still worship at the altar of the goddess. Having been watching the Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes of the mid-60s and fixating on the swinging starlets of the time, I am amazed at the type of woman I find attractive decade by decade. '60s women, besides the ones already mentioned, include Barbara Steele, Jane Asher and Marianne Faithfull. '70s women is a whole other volume, as we could say about glamour girls of the '50s, '40s and '30s. Eighties? A whole different dimension. '90s? I'm not sure I can fathom it. And the last '00s? Even more confused. I mean, really. Sue Lyon or Selena Gomez? Now I guess this reveals I've turned into a dirty old man. But why does it seem to me that Humbert Humbert today would be in a steam cycle watching the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon? The Olsen Twins and Dakota Fanning? I mean, really, now. One minute they're dribbling cereal in front of Bob Saget; the next they're dating Ben "call me Sir" Kingsley in The Wackness. Fortunately, my wife is understanding. And although sometimes she thinks I come close to the border of being pervy, she understands the wisdom of it all. She thinks The Wizards Of Waverly Place is weird. So just remember this, folks. Walt Disney had a freakout when Mouseketeer Annette Funicello did all those beach party films. So wouldn't you think that the ice in his cryogenic freezer has puddled out from excessive Hannah Montana? Just asking.

Happy New Year. Let's see what ladies the '10s will deliver.

"Who'll remember the buns, Podgy?"

2010-12-20T22:25:00.001-08:00

Wow! Dig that photo. Could that be some new, hip, psychedelic folk rocker from England or Europe engaged in that post-Incredible String Band thing? Ah, no...wait, oh god, it's a photo of yours truly found from the archives of oblivion. 41 years ago? Oh, how the body aches, the conscience reels. Has it been this far down the path? Oh well, Happy Christmas folks. And this coming from a pagan. Well, sort of pagan. More of a hip gnostic. At least that's what I thought. Dig the colour coordination of the photo. That really was the true colour of my hair. Note the matching hues of the ensemble: brown cord coat; gold turtleneck; flowing Siegfried locks; Michael Caine Ipcress File-style horn-rimmed glasses; and rust suede zippered high-heeled Beatle boots from Hardy Shoes. Too cool, man. Carnaby Street comes to Orange County. At least in that photo, which I think was taken in Brea, I lived in Diamond Bar at that time having fled the cultural oasis of Fullerton. But I digress.

Back to Christmas. Or Paganmas to us Nancy Druids. But religion aside (because my fanaticism was never in this area), I've always enjoyed the rich humour that comes from this time of year. Cynicism came early. Does anyone remember Stan Freberg's A Green Christmas from his album, Stan Freberg And The Original Cast? The Goon Show Christmas programs were always a hidden pleasure. The Beatles carried on the tradition with their Christmas discs for fan club members. Each year becoming more surreal.

Christmas shows on Space Pirate Radio were always fun. How many people enjoyed each season listening to Chef Bruno's Christmas album? Which one was your favourite? "Chet's nuts roasting by an open fire. Jack Frost's nipple in your ear..." Or "Oh come Marianne Faithfull, riding in her Triumph. Oh come Marianne Faithfull, oh come on me." Or maybe "Good King Senor Wences Saw." Mayhaps these classic tunes were inspired by the early days of Pogo: "Deck us all with Boston Charlie. Walla Walla, Wash an' Kalamazoo!" To this day, I can't hear a Christmas song in a store without rewriting the lyrics in some demonic sort of way. Recently, I've retooled Andy Williams doing "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year." Seriously, it comes on in Albertsons and I start singing:

It's the most horrible time of the year.
Family is dying and people are crying and living in fear...
It's the most horrible time of the year.

This can really change how a person looks at you in the produce section.

On stage, after doing Nothing Is Sacred and Casanova's Lips, I seriously wanted to rearrange the classic Dickens story with my play, A Christmas Maggie. ("But isn't it A Christmas Carol, Mr. Scrooge?" "I don't know Carol, but I did know Maggie and that's why it's A Christmas Maggie.") It was an insane idea, of course. But I wanted to do it anyway. Scrooge, for all outward appearances, would be true to the Dickens period, except at the time, on his frock coat lapels he wore buttons that said "Nixon Now" and "Bomb Hanoi." It was definitely a '70s piece. Scrooge was a letch, attempting to seduce the wife of his employee, Bob Crotchairs. In one scene, Ebeneezer, enjoying the view of the amply endowed Maggie Crotchairs, puts on a pair of 3D glasses and stares at her in a heightened sense of abandon. Anyway, the play never made it to the stage but it did end up in various forms on Space Pirate Radio.

There were certainly many other Christmas moments on the program. We all did our shopping with Don Wenow (from Our Gay Apparel). And how about those holiday specials from Madame Rhumba's House Of Certain Pleasures ("Where else are you gonna get those rectum sticks? You won't find them at Robinsons").

The holidays were a lot of fun spent among friends, especially if those friends were the multiple personalities that peopled my imagination on Space Pirate Radio. Over the years, many a show was done on a Christmas morning and it was not a bad way to spend the holiday.

So I hope the end of the year is good for you. Here we are wrapping up a year's worth of these glowing, nocturnal emissions. Heinz 57 varieties. Did you ketchup?

No Christmas would be complete without a message from the Beatle Pope, Pope JohnPaulGeorgeRingo II: "I've got nothing to say but it's okay. Good morning, good morning, good morning."

"Oh, dazzling. People have to wear sunglasses."

2010-12-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

Hello katz and kittenz. A happy December to you all. Well, here we are, creeping up to the watermark of one year using the modern cathode ray tube form of communication. It's been lots of fun having the flashbacks and reliving those days of yesteryear on Space Pirate Radio. My thanks to everyone who wrote in and shared their memories of all the crazy times we had. I am very gratified by those people who, along with myself, discovered the music for the first time and enjoyed the sonic experience. And there were a lot of sounds. There was so much new stuff to listen to and I am pleased that so many friends and listeners tuned in to the unusual way that I mixed the sounds up. It was always an experiment. Fresh and new music, firing up my enthusiasm into a form of audio alchemy. For the most part, for me, it was pure and total joy. I am glad that that feeling communicated to so many.

So it always comes down to the music. I found that a really good new work by an artist would inspire me to come up with my own work. I think I have mentioned in the past that Tangerine Dream's Atem album clinched it for me that I would do Space Pirate Radio. I remember Can's Future Days album helping me to write my entire play, Casanova's Lips. Amon Duul II would inspire from their lengthy pieces on Yeti and Dance Of The Lemmings. Ash Ra Tempel, Popul Vuh and so forth. Inspired work would inspire me. So I was always glad when people would tell me that they would listen to Space Pirate Radio while painting, writing or working in the darkroom. And other pleasures too.

So back to the music. In the heyday of the show, I spent a lot of time at concerts. In recent years, my hermetic side seems to have taken over. My lovely wife has made up for my traveling limitations by attending as many concerts as she can, as I used to in the '70s and '80s. We have attended together a fair amount of memorable shows, but probably not as many as I would like. Magma and Porcupine Tree in San Francisco stands out. Also in San Francisco, seeing Kraftwerk at the Warfield. So if you regularly check in, you may have noticed there has not been an entry for the past two weeks. One, because the little lady has been traipsing after Roger Waters and his new production based on the lead actor of the Wiseguy TV series: The Wahl (Call Him Ken); two, after punishing her for that indiscreation, we visited my old stamping ground, the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, to see and hear "the voice of Yes," Jon Anderson (who then would be the "knee, elbow and buttock"? Choose your favourite member, past and present).

Well it was good to get out. The fall of the house of the elderly ushers at the Lobero Theatre kindly allowed my new Mach I scooter, equipped with the iron & wine lung and kiss me catheter, escorted us down to our second to the front row seats. Ah, the Lobero. "I've traipsed on those boards," the Crypt Keeper said to his wife. Singularly unimpressed, even descriptions of the stage layout backstage and ancient anecdotes failed to impress the little one from the Pleadian glow of seeing Olias himself. Even turning off my Darth Vader breathing device in case there happened to be someone possibly recording the show, and the fact that I never interrupted or made any sarcastic comments during any part of the performance, added little to my cache. "Look, honey, it's our first concert since Kraftwerk at the Greek Theatre, where that drunken asshole drenched us with his oversized Budweiser. And it's Jon Anderson." Well, it didn't matter. This aged cynic suddenly remembered why he had devoted his life to the so-called world of progressive music. Ah, yes, progress. It's coming back to me. The dream is not over. Jon Anderson, like Lazarus, has risen from the dead. He's not screwing up. He's in top form. He's talking about love and light. And if I had a dollar for every time that was mentioned, these tickets would be paid for. I dig it, man. Seriously, though, he's in fine shape and that little inner glow is coming back. Ah, yes, I remember.

Actually, I haven't enjoyed a concert like this in a long time. It reminded me of mellow shows in the past. Shows that could be gentle and yet still retain an incredible power. Gentle Giant at the Arlington was one. Of course, being in the Lobero helped. As I said before, it's a familiar theatre--a dear old friend, actually. And even being in the front, in front of the speakers, one was not murdered as one would under most concert experiences. Yes at the Santa Barbara County Bowl was very intense. Rick Wakeman at the Ventura Theatre forced one out to the lobby on occasion.

My wife still has a certain amount of physical and psychic strength to put up with that kind of environment, which is why she saw Roger Waters for two of his three Los Angeles shows while I opted out to do working man things. I have good memories of Roger Waters and I'd like to keep them. I want to remember the Roger Waters who gave me a glass of chardonnay--not the Roger Waters who thinks fox hunting is a divine right of the English upper class. I saw The Wall when it was done for real twice in Los Angeles. This was when founding member Rick Wright was for hire. I saw The Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking in Oakland. And when I was at the top of my game, I had VIP access to Roger during the Radio KAOS tour at the Los Angeles Forum. Somewhere out there, a photographer for Sony took a dozen pictures of yours truly and Roger after the show. I've never seen them. Drug-addled record company people could never help me to get copies for my old man scrapbook. If by chance the lonely David Hemmings Blow Up character who took those shots should come across this rant and said photos still exist, I'd love to see them 23 years later. Columbia Records used to be pretty good about this. We'd get invited to all types of listening parties. The first time I heard Roger Waters' Pro & Cons was at the Griffith Park Observatory with the light show by Laserium. Still, even though Space Pirate Radio played music before anybody else did, I was not the music director and as far as the record company was concerned, I was not the one to bribe for that all-important record ad on Tuesday. What a business, folks. But I digress.

So I'm happy to say that the music still inspires. The Jon Anderson show covered all the phases of his work that have been important to Space Pirate Radio. I was pleased to hear a Basil Kirchin style of progressive jazz in his guitar chord changes. Whether that was intentional or just me didn't matter. Unlike the Roger Waters shows I didn't attend, this performance gave me that "space cadet glow." Nothing personal against Roger. I guess I would be a lot more enthusiastic if he decided to take Atom Heart Mother out on tour. Now that would be courageous.

Best of the season to you all.

"Video Killed The Radio Star."

2010-11-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, folks. The new volume of Perry Mason finally arrived, Season 5, Volume 2. First episode from January 1, 1962, entitled "The Case of the Shapely Shadow." Still stuck in all this nostalgia. Just started Season 2 of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. And how about that recent announcement that George Clooney will play Napoleon Solo in a feature remake of the series? I think George Clooney should play Perry Mason. He compared himself to Raymond Burr once. Maybe he's not as heavy as Raymond Burr, but he certainly isn't as thin as Robert Vaughn. Anyway, "...Shapely Shadow" reminds me of one of my other on-and-off obsessions: The Shadow.

As a kid, I was a fan of The Shadow radio show, pulp magazines, paperback reprints and early comics. Who didn't love radio and not enjoy The Shadow? When Space Pirate Radio began in 1974, despite my love for the original shows, he was still a great character to poke fun at ("C'mon Margo...let me cloud your mind!"). One of the funniest of the early Mad comic parodies was of the Shadow. After unclouding the mind of Margo Lane, the Shadow is revealed to be about 2 feet tall in slouch hat and cloak, with nose a foot long. I even named one of my cats in my teenage years after the Mad Magazine character, Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom.

So my early born passion for The Shadow motivated me to get involved with the Universal production starring Alec Baldwin Fans of The Shadow have always had to put up with the contradictions in the character in its various formats. The pulp Shadow is not invisible; does not cloud minds. The radio Shadow does. Orson Welles wasn't the first to play The Shadow, but he was the first to develop it as a character rather than a radio host. Previous film attempts have all been a batch of mixed blessings, so fans of Walter Gibson's pulp character have never seen a true interpretation. Throughout the years, the character had been in film development hell with various starts and stops. Many actors were considered and possibly attached to a production: Ben Cross, for one; Liam Neeson, for another (his Darkman had certainly covered similar ground). So now Alec Baldwin, deprived of the Tom Clancy franchise, is attached, hoping there might be a success similar to Batman (which of course was inspired by The Shadow).

So at this time in my life, I've acquired a small collection of Shadow paraphernalia (second only to my collection on Peter Sellers, and all of them outdistanced by my esoteric music collection). My love for the subject prompted my to consider publishing a new history of The Shadow entitled "Who Knows What Evil?" This gets me in contact with Universal and the producers of the film, who invite me to contribute research on the project. So in January of 1994, I'm back on the Universal Studios lot where I last had spent 3 days filming the prison finale on 1980's The Blues Brothers. The studio has always been kind of a funny place for me. I would write an article trashing its assembly line schedule of productions, and then within a month, be working in one of their films. I was going to mention in my previous blog about jobs, how Universal had once offered me an opportunity to screenwrite for the Incredible Hulk TV series. But being the purist snob that I was, since I wasn't a fan of Marvel Comics, I turned it down. Probably blew the best chance for career advancement there, but, hey...can't stop being eccentric.

But back to The Shadow. I was fortunate enough to be on the set of The Shadow's private sanctum. This is the scene where Lamont Cranston is invaded by his arch enemy, Shiwan Khan, played by actor John Lone. The production staff is treating me with fine hospitality and I am introduced to director, Russell Mulcahy. He is well known for directing Highlander. But because of my music background, he is also known to me as the director of The Buggles video that inaugurated MTV (not to mention, his films for Duran Duran). I told you not to mention that. So upon introduction, I hum the little ditty and surprisingly he doesn't punch me out. We are friends for the day. He is courteous and accomodating to me on his set, and even invites me to take his photograph in the director's chair.

It is a wonderfully relaxed and open set, moreso than others I've either worked on or visited. Alec Baldwin is extremely friendly, although he smokes like a fiend. The set is enclosed and Russell directs from outside on a monitor. He doesn't find it necessary to be that close to the action and viewing this style of directing at the time seems unique to me. I am witnessing the change in production techniques. John Lone is very friendly and enjoys talking about his work on Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and Alan Rudolph's The Moderns. He seems a little uncomfortable in the wig. Penelope Ann Miller is on the set, though not in this scene. She is really friendly to me and invites me to stay another day (which will be her final day on set) to interview her. We talk about the character of Margo Lane, which she seems to find helpful. I put forth my theory that Margo Lane was inspired by actress Myrna Loy and this perks her up. Later she will mention this in some interviews, which will bug other Shadow historians who feel Margo Lane had nothing to do with Myrna Loy. It's fun to see your influence at work.

Also on the set was Jim Brown, entertainment editor for NBC's The Today Show. He's putting together a piece for the program. And down the line, I will get a call from him and an invite to the NBC Studios to bring myself and examples of my Shadow collection for his feature on the film. Groovy. I will be a part of one of those discarded DVD extras, where I, along with the principal actors, will comment on aspects of the film. I suggest to Jim Brown the inclusion of Jonathan Winters, who's in the film and happens to be in the NBC Studios on the day we are filming. Of course, my producer/director's side creates a suggestion that will minimize my performer's amount of screen time. Why don't I think of these things at the time? Either way, the program did air on The Today Show and was seen in most of the U.S., except I think in Los Angeles where it got pre-empted for the O.J. Simpson decision. Damn you O.J.!

Also on that day at Universal, I met author James Luceno, who was there seeping up the mood as he had been given the job of writing the paperback novelization of The Shadow film. A very friendly guy, typical of the spirit of sci-fi authors, he had previously written a Young Indiana Jones novel. At the time, his ambition was to do Star Wars books, and I am happy to say that he has succeeded admirably in this area. During the time of his writing The Shadow adaptation, we were in contact. I sent him all of the background information on the character that I felt would help his book. Copies of comics and things like that. He sent me privileged information regarding the character from his side and he was very kind to acknowledge my assistance in his book. Unfortunately, my own literary effort never saw the light of day.

All in all, despite the film's shortcomings, it was an extremely delightful connection into a world long gone by. A mysterious figure, shrouded in fog on a roof somewhere in 1930s Chinatown. Marvelous! Who is this figure? The mystery deepens. We do know this...if Lamont Cranston was a Man About Town, the best that I can do is be a Man About Blocks.

"No man is free who has to work for a living. But I'm available."

2010-11-22T23:27:00.000-08:00

I have a problem with the fine line between work and pleasure. Somewhere along life's journey, I gave up on the concept that you work at something you hate in an attempt to deceive your fellow humankind into parting with valuable commodities in exchange for your useless goods. This might explain why my CV is so abbreviated. Based upon some early antiquated philosophy, my utopian vision (which might be fancy-speak for being delusional) embodied the rugged, outdated model that work should be of universal benefit--not personal profit. Now let me tell you folks, this will not work in a job interview. So if you're starting out in the workforce now, stop reading here.

Anybody left? Ask any madman, but the real pleasure in life is turning your own personal obsession into an occupation. This can be really tough at the beginning. Certainly, my early attempts at interacting within the real world were minor trainwrecks of embarrassment. Being a box boy at Alpha Beta with my much too long Illya Kuryakin haircut was my first experience with deceit used as financial incentive. "Oh, I just love those strawberries," sez the overweight checker to the elderly woman purchasing said fruit product, with yours truly placing them in the extra-sturdy paperbag. The happy pensioner leaving the store, pleased that her purchase has been validated by the friendly cashier, the hostess turns to me and says "I can't stand those strawberries, they make me sick." Why am I stunned into a shocked silence of horror? You lying bitch. Who do you trust? Is this to teach me to question the comments made from people that are you paying currency to? A minor event, you say? Perhaps. But if this event had such a profound effect that I remember it 44 years later, how then could I find myself in phone sales, using my talents as a gifted actor to entice unseen, new residents into subscribing to the Los Angeles Times? It's all true. From the entrails of a decrepit building in Whittier, CA, I would dial newly connected phone numbers (received in Langley-like fashion from unspoken connections in the phone company) and greet the unsuspecting recipient with the words "Hello, this is David Hemmings from the Los Angeles Times. How are you today? I have good news for you. The Los Angeles Time has opened up a BRAND NEW office in your area!" (This area included all of Southern California--we were the office.) "And for a limited time only, if you have the Los Angeles Times delivered to your home, you will receive a special free gift." (The gift was a collection of reprints of famous Los Angeles Times covers. Suitable for framing.) "I don't want to subscribe to the newspaper," the doubting customer might hastily insert into my fast-paced spiel. "Oh, this is not a subscription," David Hemmings or Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing would say to the customer, "but only a TRIAL OFFER. You can cancel at any time." But of course it really was a subscription, and the point was to get them to keep the paper for at least a month so yours truly, Terence Stamp, could get his commission. What a dreadful business. I was actually very good at it and was sent to new urban areas of development simply to call recent homeowners and get that valuable, first time, daily paper subscription. Like a field operator, I was removed from HQ in Whittier and phoning out of a distribution office in Claremont. Besides the good pay for a young man, the perks of the job included getting my Sunday paper on Wednesday because the Calendar, comics, magazine and non-newsy sections were delivered early, and the fact that the little mini-mart around the corner thought I was overage and sold me beer with my lunch every day.

(Footnote for underage drinkers: I'm not condoning this, but remembering the fact that the store assumed I was older and I took advantage of it. I should also point out that if you are underage, an effect that will really work is putting baby powder in your hair, giving you that greying temples look. A slight limp can be added for extra effect. It works. Trust me.)

So the paper thing was pretty depressing. Soul diminishing. For years I hated the L.A. Times. Wouldn't buy the paper. Then later I decided why should I sell the crap that's in the paper when I can actually write it? Sorry friends, I went off on a Tangent here (a much smoother ride...better than going off in a Huff). So anyway, I liked music. Thought I had an ear for it. Wanted to play it. Maybe get paid for it. Do what you like. Do what you love. If you can make it profitable, you're blessed. Of course, this also has its dark side. Which explains how Dick Cheney exists. Which is why I often say to people when they talk about sex and violence: "I'm a lover, not a fighter. But I'll fight for love."

"Illya, are you free?"

"When fashion dictates..."

2010-11-15T22:29:00.000-08:00

"...you're living in, a Fashion State."

While watching the Desert Fox News Network, on Fox Und Freunde, I saw an interview with former first Fuhrer George W. Putsch. He was there to promote his new autobiography, "Stories Told Round Mein Kampfire." A collection of memoirs of a man's burning struggle to rewrite his memories. Regain his memories? Rogaine his memories? Herr loss? Not sure, but powerful stuff nonetheless. As the metal union workers would say, this is riveting stuff. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an excess of free time and not much else motivating your daily existence. It is hard to pick out a a favourite part of the book over another. Every bit of detail sears itself upon the memory and, uhm...I. Sorry, what was I saying? The many challenges that faced this eloquent leader. I was particularly moved by his agonizing predecision and former predecision after the previous former predecision to invade Poland. Despite left-leaning criticism that his only desire to invade Poland was to take over its famous sausage industry (after rumours of his early failed Austin Sausage explorations and with some aid from the Saudi sausage faction), his firm conviction that the Polish leader had hidden stores of mustard gas remains convincing. Even though after the invasion, no condiments of mass destruction were found. Mustard, yes. Gas, no. Only in combination and with heavy beer consumption. Great reading anyway.

And who among us will not feel the pain of something internal coming up when we hear in his own words from someone else his feeling on the day of the Reichstag burning; forcing down his own emotions while reading Meine Pet Scapegoat to the Bavarian kindergarten. It will choke you up. And speaking of choking up, don't forget his passage on his near-death sexual asphyxiation while chomping on an oversized Viennese pretzel. Exciting stuff. Even though some have claimed that he was just trying to emulate his father, former Fuhrer, George Herbert Walker Putsch's famous rainbow sushi barf on Emperor Hirohito. A cry of help from a neurotic son to his tyrant father? Or just the inability to swallow correctly? It will be up to the reading public to determine just how much you can swallow.

So there is much to recommend in this book. It's thick enough to press some Edelweiss. And it's not all serious and somber moments. A collection of Tex-Naz recipes are also included. You'll want to whip up an armadillo strudel, I can guarantee. Mouth-watering. So add this book to your library. Make sure you place it in the fiction section. Right next to the Warren Report. Auf Wiedersehen Pet.

"Open Channel D."

2010-11-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

Bob's your U.N.C.L.E. (Part 1)

Hello folks. How are you, folks? The wife and I just finished watching a Columbo episode from the 5th season starring Robert Vaughn and directed by Patrick McGoohan. Wow, Napoleon Solo directed by John Drake, Number 6, Danger Man, Secret Agent and the Prisoner. A pretty amazing meeting of '60s spy icons. And what a week it has been for swinging '60s spy nostalgia. I bought myself a toy: the complete set of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Among my early obsessions in 1964 was a love for that black and white, NBC TV series. I was hooked from the initial airing of the first show and was a fan from day one. Like today's loons in love with Lost, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was the hipster, cool show of the early '60s. Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo was the American's identification with the James Bond-type, but for us Beatle-bred, iconoclastic teenagers, David McCallum's avant-garde Russian, Illya Kuryakin, was the one to identify with. As I think I've mentioned before, my insistence on wearing black turtlenecks with coats and refusing to cut my hair over my ears and behind the back caused suspension at my uber-fascist high school, John A. Rowland High School in Rowland Heights, CA--the upper armpit of the City of Industry, near the garden spot community of La Puente (hmmm...can heaven exist anywhere else on earth?).

Anyway, big fan of the show. Stayed with it through its first, great, black and white season, although I was torn apart when the show was moved to Monday nights, which was the night that I would go into Hollywood and work on the KCOP TV Channel 13 horror program, Jeepers Creepers. More about this later, but I do remember being in the make-up room at Channel 13 and watching the monitor being tuned to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But I digress. It was my involvement with Rowland High School that got me invited to the set of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1966. I wrote for the high school newspaper and at the time there was a magazine called Scene which was primarily a teen-based publication made up of contributions from various high school literary staffs. The show, wishing to increase its popularity with a younger audience, invited one writer from each high school to attend a Saturday get-together on the MGM Studios lot. The invitation included the opportunity to visit all of the sets for the show, watch a preview of the next week's unaired episode, and finally, to meet and interview stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. This is terrific! The only problem was that I was not the number one writer at the paper. So the invitation went to a more credentialed lady contributor, who casually showed me the invitation she had received. I freaked. But my intense spy training kept it cool and unnoticeable. Was anyone looking? Could I club her over the head and stick her into the multi-purpose room? Would anyone notice? I'd seen how this was done. It could look like an accident. They wouldn't find her. At least not until after lunch period. I coolly eyed my surroundings. But suddenly, my plot took a strange direction...she said "I can't go, do you want to?" How fine is that line between life and death? Amazing, really. "Oh, thanks, yes, I'd love to." And so the violence factor was removed. All was well.

Well, anyway, to make a long story longer, I got up far too early on Saturday morning and took a series of buses to Culver City to wind up at the front of the world famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Wow. And it was all so casual. Very relaxed. What a time. You probably can't see it in the photograph, but the marquee on top of the studios promotes the release of their latest mega-motion picture, Doctor Zhivago. But I was not there for that. I was there to enter Del Floria's Tailor Shop and travel through the halls of United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. And we saw it all: the spinning table, the round globe, Alexander Waverly's communications center, those U.N.C.L.E. hallways. The deep innards of that mysterious organization revealed. A fan's delight.

In the MGM screening room, we watched "The Foreign Legion Affair," which I expected as U.N.C.L.E. had been broadcast the night before (now on Friday evenings) and the preview for next week's show was the one we were now watching. We are now in Season 2, all in colour, and the camp is rising considerably, while the serious espionage level is dropping. Although I am not aware of the showbiz politics at the time, I believe this is due to the exit of original producer, Sam Rolfe, and the entrance of new producer, David Victor. I noticed on my original U.N.C.L.E. membership cards (which you would get if you wrote NBC saying you were a fan of the show) that David Victor had replaced Sam Rolfe. Ironically, I have kept the David Victor card in my wallet since I received it in the mid-60s. I see that I was promoted.

So after the viewing, stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum come out and chat with the peanut gallery of writers. Vaughn wore a Tyrolean-styled hat, which he referred to as his "weekend hat." McCallum said he was wearing it because he didn't have his toupee on. I don't think those two really got along very well. I was dressed in my mock-Illya style turtleneck and coat. McCallum looked at me with a dazed, surrealistic glance, which suggested "what the hell are you dressed like?" I whipped out my classic Kodak and snapped the rare Access Hollywood exclusive you now see.

As I have mentioned before, although I admired Robert Vaughn for his politics (he was a Kennedy-style Democrat, and at one time was considered to run for the California Senate...but I think some spooky types may have scared him away from it), I narcissistically identified with David McCallum. I was quite disappointed to discover that David McCallum was extremely, ultra-conservative. In the past, I always took his side thinking how he had been wronged by his ex-wife Jill Ireland and Charles Bronson. After all, in every episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the supposedly single Illya Kuryakin is seen wearing his wedding band. And he and his wife, Jill, appeared in two episodes in the first season. They were a picture-perfect couple, these two blonds who had met in England in the J. Arthur Rank period. But as I always frequently discover, you can be surprised and you may have to rethink things. For me, I have to find what is consistent. It's the irregularities that disturb me. So I'm not naive to be fooled by the performance, but in the case of David McCallum, he was closer to the spy that he portrayed in one fact: he never revealed anything about himself. At the time, he hung out in the hip circles, released cool musical albums, appeared on Hullabaloo, acted as if he was sincerely a part of the counter-culture. It surprised me in later interviews how conservative and socialist-paranoid he was. Is it just the cliche of the tightwad Scotsman? Or is it something else? After all, the CIA has props from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in Langley. They use the show as a recruiting tool. "Hey kids, come to Langley! We'll give you an exploding pen! It's got gas!" So it makes you question everything. I remember accidentally running into Charles Bronson with Jill Ireland in Del Mar, CA. They owned a timeshare in the hotel I was staying at. Charles Bronson. The star of those Death Wish movies directed by Michael Winner, who it's been listed was once a boyfriend of Jill Ireland. I'm confused. I'm petting my cats now. Thank god they're not in show business.

Thank god I got out of this spy obsession. For a while, I thought "what the hell is wrong with me? U.N.C.L.E.'s the CIA." Then on later re-thought, I considered that perhaps U.N.C.L.E. represented the United Nations or Interpol. After all, they did show the UN building in early episodes. And as the announcer said "U.N.C.L.E. was made up of multi-nationalities." So perhaps this police force was more utopian than fascist. Perhaps Thrush was closer to the CIA with its new world order agenda.

So what did we learn here? Anything of importance? Deep, sociological insight? Or just pop culture? Conspiracies and cover-up? Or cool hairstyles and turtlenecks? Light fiction or deeper meaning? Life imitating art? Didn't G. Gordon Liddy think he was the real James Bond? Food for thought. Be seeing you.

"Wouldn't this be a good time to head on out to the snack bar?"

2010-11-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

50 states of mind. A union of the unusual. So here we are at #51. Then it has to be a possession. At best, you could call this entry Puerto Rico. It's half-time. Let the show begin. Or take a pause. Bring on the leggy girls. And maybe some music. Anyway, let's take a break.

Well, folks, how's it going? What a week. All Hallows' Eve. All Saints' Day. All Souls' Day. A World Series that I couldn't care less about, but saw anointed by uber-fascists 41 and 43, only to be defeated by the boys from Castro. I really have no room for sports, but I have to admit a smile here on this one. (When it comes to sports, I only like female gymnastics and falconry "go for the eyes!" Of course, now that I'm thinking about sports, I was fascinated by the 300 lb. groin lift. This is a now deleted sport, wherein the athlete lifted himself up from the ground by grabbing each of his testes. Now the incredible thing about this sport is that...it is impossible. But that didn't stop this from being a minor Olympic challenge in certain circles for a number of years.)

And voting day. Did you vote or will you, depending on your time zone. I voted early. Placed my ballot in the 17th hole of a well-heeled Florida golf course. Obviously I voted absentee-off. Sorry, I've been under the weather this week as well. Which is why I'm taking it easy on this one. I had many different topics that I wanted to discuss here, but hopefully they can wait. Random thoughts, both old and new. Like, if Yoko Ono had married Sonny Bono would she have called herself Yoko Ono Bono? These questions have been with me all my life. When I was a child, I was referred to as Master Guden. This made me wonder if Alan Bates had been traumatized as a child. Go figure. So 'til next time, my fellow travelers, have a lovely day in democracy. My polling place is always confused about my affiliation. When asked my political feelings, I often reply I'm a B.S.er. Or in other words, a bourgeois socialist.

"We can dance if we want to."

2010-10-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

We were all slightly mad in the '80s. I always felt I could write a sociological thesis on how the world changed in 1980. I would point to the murder of John Lennon and the entrance of Ronald Reagan as the death knell for the utopian idealism of the '60s and the '70s. The desire to make a better world, which was coupled with the joy of personal freedom, turned into a primarily self-gratifying impulse for power. It is only too easy to become the very thing you wish to change. Take a freedom loving person and scratch the surface and the fascist is not too far beneath. I could see the Dr. Jeckylls turning into Mr Hydes. But what the heck, I'm crazy aren't I?

So those '80s. Pretty wacky. Even though I felt I was still a key leader of the resistance--a top operator of the underground--I certainly carried on like a loon. Can we ever not be in awe of the grandeurs of bad taste...er, I mean, cutting edge that the '80s personified? I mean, look at me. A perpetual, early midlife crisis. Who else would be a natural blond and try to dye his hair white like Rutger Hauer's in Blade Runner. After a first attempt, I looked like a bad country singer or maybe a canary. I had to get that special white tone. It needed to match the colour of my latest white automobile. And what does it say about a time and place when you could knock the girls out with a 1984 Pontiac Fiero? It was the world's first Snap-On tools car. A rubber car. Drive it like a condom. Perfect for bedwetters. The car of the future. How long did the future last? Four years. This is real. The day I paid the car off, Pontiac folded it. This was my first and last American car. And why did I have the damn thing in the first place? Because it sort of looked like a Fiat Bertone. But it didn't have the price tag. Fiat. The cool Italian car. Remember what they said Fiat stood for? "Fix It Again, Tony." Well, you know what Fiero stood for? "Fix It Entirely Right, Ortega." I was lucky, though. Unlike most of the cars, my engine didn't catch on fire. Despite the outward appearance of being a sexy car, the interior had all the mystique of an interstellar coffin. A two seater only, with a console dividing you and your passenger, it screamed "platonic relationships." The girl I was going with at the time, impressed by the sleek exterior but then enlightened by yours truly regarding the awkwardness of the interior, responded to my comments about possible limitations to romanticism within the vehicle by saying "well I guess you gotta be a real good talker."

Anyway, I had that car during my final days with KTYD and my new radio home at KTMS/Y-97. I drove in semi-style to my various professional, radio-type public appearances in that car. Those were the Dancing Days, my friend. At KTYD, besides doing my only constant connection to reality, Space Pirate Radio, I supplemented my meager income by hosting KTYD Night at a club in Santa Barbara called the Pacific Coast Dance Company. This was Tuesdays, folks. Featuring the fab cover tunes of the Young Adults, a nice bunch of guys who could replicate (Rutger Hauer, Rutger Hauer) your favourite current '80s dance tunes. I can still hear the Romantics in my head. Or the Fixx. Or Billy Idol. When the boys would do the Fisted One's "Flesh For Fantasy," the sound man would give me a microphone and I would karaoke in the darkness singing "Flush, flush your family, come on now..." Now how is that possible, you say? Well, part of my contract included an open bar. So after my second vodka collins I felt little pain and a hammy, Mickey Rooney-like love of the club. "Hey folks, dance contest coming." I would hustle the cutest or slightly uninhibited girls with their dates to enter the weekly contest. Dance finals were the highlight of the Tuesday evening, with lucky couples receiving album giveaways and the latest concert tickets: R.E.M. at UCSB or the Go-Go's at the County Bowl. This is as close as I came to selling out. I didn't feel I was selling out because I was still known for doing Space Pirate Radio and there were no compromises on that show. This was my down-to-earth, space boy persona. Making a little money, getting free drinks, and having the attentions of listeners and non-listeners. It was fun to be young. I did feel sad for the many single males who I would watch enter the club, hoping to get lucky, blowing their paycheck on drinks for ladies who would eventually disappear into the night. That was the saddest part. But being in a haze of alcool and the off-center of attention didn't stop me from returning to the happening club the following week.

Clubbing for me came into its peak when I hooked up with Zelo during the Y-97 days. Post-1985, Zelo was the uber-kool restaurant/nightclub for Santa Barbara. Studio 54 with really good food. Tres-moderne. They were so cool, they didn't do any radio advertising. Every pathetic account executive at both KTYD and Y-97 always hoped to get them to buy airtime. They didn't need it. Until I came along. Sploogie! After the success of my 12th Anniversary Space Pirate Radio party at Zelo, the restaurant/club was the hip spot to be at. I'll talk more about this later (sorry), but for now, I'm reminded only of that clubbing spirit of the '80s. I actually like to dance. Wild, geriatric seizures of expression. It was great. Isadora Duncan meets Martha Graham and Nijinsky at the Whisky A-Go-Go in an opiated, cappuccino moment. Hermes Pan on acid dancing to the Blow Monkeys.

So where have we been, kids? We've talked about the '80s and we've talked about dancing. So were we all lemmings dancing towards the edge? Too many thoughts on that area. Philosophical questions you can't answer. Like how many angels can you fit on a pin giving head? Hmmm! Still love dancing, though. Even now in my wheelchair, cramped by my iron & wine lung, if you put on "The Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex: "I can dance mein Fuhrer." Terpsichore! "We are most a Muse."

"Please don't squeeze the Shaman."

2010-10-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

It's raining. So with the light, gothic sounds of rain on the roof, I recall the moments of one of my favourite Space Pirate Radio shows. Occasionally, when I had a guest on the program, the show would veer away from its usual mix of madcap and music, and focus more on the artist who was in studio. As mentioned in past entries, there were many special moments with very special friends who had extra special talents. Many of those guests appeared on my '70s to mid-'80s KTYD shows. But others evolved as the show progressed on its Y-97 era during the late '80s to mid-'90s.

One of those later shows that proved as much a pleasure to the audience as it did to yours truly was when American synthesizer artist Steve Roach did an all-nighter with me in 1988. Steve was one of the select few American artists who appeared on my predominantly import oriented show due to his love of European electronic music. Steve had made a reputation as being the most internationally experimental artist in the US at the time. His influences had been Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, but he was incorporating a highly original amount of Native American and Aboriginal sounds to the mix, creating a truly original twist in the world of ambient music. In each work you could feel the spirit of Castaneda, Borges and Peter Weir's The Last Wave. You felt the magic of the desert in Roach's soundscapes. His work Quiet Music was one of my all-time favourites.

He was on my program to play and discuss his epic work, Dreamtime Return, the double cd of sounds inspired by his travels in Australia. My friendship with Steve had been instigated by my long-term friendship with record producer, Eckart Rahn. His record company, Celestial Harmonies, had picked up Roach's Fortuna label and was now releasing Steve's current works.

Slight detour...only because I have to say here and now that I could go on and on about Eckart Rahn. This delightful German music lover I met in the mid-'70s because of my playing German bands like Amon Duul II, Can and Embryo. He represented the German artists musical rights to Americans and I met him through my mad passion for eclectic German sound experimentation. I discovered he had his own labels, Kuckuck and ERP, which released unusual titles. He introduced me to Deuter and Peter Michael Hamel. And he released the works of my already favourite artist, Florian Fricke, aka Popol Vuh. He also released non-Japanese versions of Kitaro and non-French releases of Jean-Michel Jarre. He was a jazz man. Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. He was a bass player. Was involved with ECM Records. A big part of the German jazz scene. Got sucked into the psychedelic bit. That's how he gets stuck with me. He visits me in Santa Barbara from his home in Connecticut. I visit him at his office in Munich in 1982 (I will always remember being in the restarurant by myself in the Munich Hilton, scooping up the beef stroganoff in the smorgasbord-like atmosphere, wondering what the hell am I doing alone in this city of Hitler, when I see a far door open up and a tall, good-looking, slightly rain-drenced blond Siegfried-type of a man comes in and says "Hello Guy").

So thanks to Eckart, he brings Steve Roach up to Santa Barbara. Eckart is now living in Tucson, but Steve is still headquartered in Los Angeles. Steve will relocate to Tucson and start his Timeroom Studios in the not too distant future. Eckart's visits to Santa Barbara are always a pleasure, now doubly so with Steve in tow. We do the town. With Eckart, that means plenty of coffee and sushi too. We go to my favourite Japanese restaurant, Kyoto, where much tuna and yellow tail is consumed. Down to lower State St. for cappuccinos. I suggest to Eckart that he should start the world's first sushi-coffee bar, thus cutting down travel time. Another good idea lost.

But on Sunday night/Monday morning, the three of us are in the sub-ghetto studios of Y-97. Eckart is very shy, low-key and wishes not to take attention away from his artist's work. Pity, in a way, because it would be so easy to do six hours just talking about his experiences in the German avant-garde scene. His life in Munich alone is a wealth of information: the commune of Amon Duul, his friendship with Can, Fassbinder, Herzog and Wenders, the jazz and classical artists. So many stories. But not to be told on this show. The focus is on Steve Roach. In fact, Eckart will bow out after the first hour and head back to the hotel, leaving me and Steve to delve into the hypnotic realms of his music.

It was very transcending. We felt extremely other-worldly and yet were quite sober. The power of Steve's music. We played all of his album, as well as some of his favourite artists. Much discussion on his Australian experiences. During one part of the show, while listening to the music, I turned to Steve and said "I know this is cliche, but I felt an intense deja vu." And he said "so did I." Perhaps we had spent too much time in candlelit rooms listening to Klaus Schulze. Or maybe it was the bunker-like decor of Y-97's studios. I mean, really, folks. Sometimes these radio stations at night really make you feel like you should have the cyanide capsules ready for any moment. I should get out more.

I wanted Space Pirate Radio to put on a concert with Steve at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara and plans were set. But then the city slapped the Lobero with an earthquake retrofit and the date had to be scrapped. Fortunately, it was never announced, so fans and listeners were not disappointed. But myself and Steve were. That would have been a show I would have liked to have attended. Anyway, that Space Pirate Radio broadcast of 1988 was a special show and I was pleased that it was a favourite among listeners.

"Here we are starving to death, and all you can think of is food."

2010-10-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah.

"Allo. This is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec...painter. I may be a little guy...but I have the best brush in town."

How do you know if your girlfriend is having an affair with Toulouse-Lautrec? If she has hickeys on her knees, that would be a clue.

What kind of cloth does a French thief wear? Velour.

Attention horror fans. They are remaking The Craft. It's called The Kraft. It's really cheesy.

"Pygmy!"

2010-10-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

After doing my previous entry, reprinting my Sherlock Holmes parody from 1981, I got to thinking about how much Sherlock Holmes has played a part throughout my life. The Conan Doyle stories were among the first things I ever read. One of my earliest gifts from my father was the Complete Sherlock Holmes. Later, I was gifted with the two volume box set, the Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Seriously though, what kid in my age group who loved mood and mystery didn't enjoy the atmosphere and trappings of the world's most favourite consulting detective? So really, who isn't a fan.

Sherlock Holmes is constantly interpreted and re-interpreted. I believe the character has been portrayed more times on film than any other fictional character. Like Hamlet, it can always be viewed in a different light. I've been lucky to see all of the best interpretations: Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Christopher Plummer, John Neville, Christopher Lee, and for most fans of the books, the work of Jeremy Brett. There have been many variations and transmutations: Robert Stephens in the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Nicol Williamson in the Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Spielberg's Young Sherlock Holmes, and now Robert Downey's. And let's not even start about the parodies: Gene Wilder, Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, John Cleese... Before Billy Wilder did the Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Stephens, it was announced that the film would be made with Peter O'Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson. Later, around Magic Christian time, this developed into being a project that Sellers would play Holmes and Ringo Starr would play Watson. Anyway, it's all too much.

So a year later in 1982, I'm in London to put together my Space Pirate Video pilot and continue work on my Peter Sellers documentary. Where shall I stay while I'm in this magnificent city? My parents had been to London previously and they were supposed to be booked into the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street, but they were given accommodations in another hotel in the Mayfair district. They liked the hotel they were in, but were kind of looking forward to being in the hotel named after the famous character. Remembering this, while booking my accommodations, I suggested to my travel agent friend, "howabout the Sherlock Holmes Hotel?" So it was done. Not a five star hotel, I still found the choice a pleasant one, the hotel conveniently located on upper Baker Street near Marylebone. With Marylebone station around the corner, transportation throughout London was fast and easy. I spent much time in the Marylebone station. Trains could take me out of the city to East Finchley and Golders Green Cemetery--places connected with Peter Sellers. The Underground would take me to Piccadilly or to the Thames Embankment. And Baker Street itself was an easy street to walk south into London, down to Hyde Park and King's Road. The hotel was at the north end of Baker Street near the famous lodgings at 221B which were, at the time, a bank that incorporated a small museum. True Sherlockians, however, throughout the years, have debated where the actual lodgings were. Supposedly at the time of the stories, 221B would have been at the south end of Baker Street--not the north. I wasn't obsessed. It was just nice to be on Baker Street. You know, the Gerry Rafferty song, flowing through your head. When I walked down the street, I failed to realize while passing number 94 that I was going by the former home of Apple House, the Beatles empire, as well as the old The Fool painted Apple boutique. But that's London. Every inch is history. And you can't help but miss it all without knowing it.

But back to Holmes. Or rather, his hotel. It was very hot and humid that July in '82. My rooms were located actually at the far end of the hotel, overlooking Baker Street. The proper entrance to the hotel was actually located on the side street. Looking at the other rooms, I would have been disappointed not seeing and hearing the life and action of the street itself. My view of the street below included a post office, I believe a Wimpy Burger, a street corner with signs denoting the direction of Hatfield and the North. Cool. I took this as a good sign for my love of progressive music. Now the irony. You would expect the Sherlock Holmes Hotel to be the epitome of true English-ness. It was, however, owned by some Middle Eastern group. All of the staff and bellhops were from Pakistan. Thank god I had the minibar, which, by the way, they would check each day to see how many tiny bottles of vodka and mini orange juice containers I had consumed the previous night. Now, seriously here, I'm not being racist. This is 1982 and I don't have any kind of Muslim stereotype going on here, right? I'm just in London at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel and I expect to be bathed in some Baskerville-like fog of mist and mood. Instead, my not-unfriendly bellhops speak little or no English and it's the England of the Raj. So instead of being in a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle store, I'm in E.M. Forester's A Passage To India. Near the end of my stay, I trundle down to the bar for another cool vodka tonic, and I discover the bartender is a woman and she has an English accent. Oh my god! I say to her, picking up my drink, "My god, you're the only English person working in this hotel." Her reply to me: "I'm actually from Australia." (For the record, I did actually meet an Irish maid working in a hotel on my trip. It was at the Munich Hilton. Go figure.)

But I digress. While at the hotel, from my room, on the phone, I am using the services of British Telecom. I am attempting to get the phone numbers of Peter Sellers's children, Sarah (who owns an antique shop) and Michael. I am hoping to speak to them in regards to the documentary I am making on their father. The young lady I am speaking to is very helpful. She is explaining to me which numbers are listed and unlisted. I tell her my desire to get these phone numbers for my film project, etc., etc. And it sort of dawns on me that this conversation is seeming to be longer than what would be a normal conversation with an American operator. As it turns out, I am speaking to a woman named Sue Caliburn, who happens to be married to an up-and-coming English actor named Nigel Caliburn, and she is being as helpful to me as she possibly can. The Seller's children's numbers are unlisted and unavailable to me through British Telecom. I can't get them for my project this way. I do, however, get to connect with the wife of a man who works for the BBC and is sympathetic to my overall project. Through this chance encounter I meet both of them during my stay in London at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel.

Funny how these things turn out. Almost like a blind date, I have the joy to meet this young couple in the lobby of the Sherlock Holmes Hotel. Nigel Caliburn, also known now as Nigel Carrington, is a talented young actor from Cheshire who shared my love of the Goon Show, Peter Sellers and his passion for Sir Laurence Olivier. It was a magical, solid friendship and made my trip to London very special. In regards to the Sherlock Holmes connections, Nigel, as an actor, appeared with Jeremy Brett in the Sherlock Holmes episode, The Dancing Men. Also, Nigel told me that he and Sue had their honeymoon at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel. I enjoyed my long friendship with Sue and Nigel. I am sure I will speak more about this later. Nigel has worked long and hard at his career. He has many credits on the BBC and has worked with many actors I have admired. He understudied for Timothy Dalton (who, by the way, he can do a perfect impression of) and played opposite Vanessa Redgrave in Anthony and Cleopatra while Dalton was off testing for James Bond. Nigel loved Olivier and I loved Sellers. I seriously suggested to him that we create a play called "Green Room," where both the spirits of Olivier and Sellers are in purgatory in a green room in the afterlife. It was my idea that this vehicle would give Nigel a chance to do all his best Larry impressions and I would do all my best Peters. That we could act out our favourite scenes and make a comment here and there. Perfect for the Edinburgh Fringe. I liked it. Another pipe dream. Ironically and sadly, I called Nigel and broke the news to him regarding Olivier's death. The last time I spoke to him was, sadly in the same vein, when I broke to him the news of the death of Princess Diana. This is one of the painful realities of west coast time versus British time. Despite this, I am happy to see that Nigel Carrington's career progresses. He does many books on tape and appeared in the uber-successful film, The Dark Knight.

Quick Watson, the needle! Needle Nardle Noo! Thinking back to those days at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel, having a supper of filet of sole and white wine at the Ristorante Moriarty, getting a second wind, deciding to take a cab and head to Leicester Square...well, that does it for me. Although I never joined the official Sherlock Holmes society, the Baker Street Irregulars, it didn't matter. I always thought their problem was due to a lack of fiber.

A Study In Slightly Beige: or, the case of the Japanese doormen.

2010-09-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

Further Memoir of Dr. John H. Watson M.D. (for Madman). It was late Autumn in the year 1899, when I found myself once again in my old familiar lodgings at 221 B Baker Street. The home of my dear friend Sherlock Holmes. The many adventures we had shared up to this date.

I was going through my old tin box, which contained so many notes on the singular habits and baffling cases that had confronted my old roommate. Each case revealed certain traits that made Sherlock Holmes the most famous of consulting detectives.

My profession as doctor was seeming to take less and less of my time, save for my deep love of gynecology. I had been picking up a bit of income from selling the stories of our adventures to the Strand and Singles Register. Which story should I recount next? So many titles appeared to me. The Singular Case of the Aluminum Crotch, or perhaps The Adventure of the Five Dancing Dips. As I pondered these notes, I suddenly heard a scream come forth from Mrs. Hudson, the Dutch porno queen, who had since become our landlady.

The next thing I knew, the front door of our sitting room burst open to reveal the cloaked figure of a woman. Recovering from my initial surprise, I was amazed to realize that I was looking upon the form and visage of Sister Blase Chalant, or Nun Chalant, Mother Inferior of the Convent of Our Lady of the Total Experience. Before I could ask the dear Sister what she was doing in my living room, I heard the less-than-feminine voice of my old friend say: "Well, Watson. The case you call A Study in Slightly Beige is closed for good. All decent interior decorators of London can now sleep soundly. The nortorious Wimpner and his illicit Drapery Gang are safely in the hands of Inspector Lestrade."

And with those words, Sherlock Holmes tore off the habit of Sister Chalant, to reveal the leather disguise of Mrs. Emma Peel. That was the way with Sherlock. Like living with a flesh and blood Chinese puzzle. Holmes was a master of disguise. The tight leather garments hugged his form well. I was certainly fooled. And curiously impressed. Was the room getting warmer?

"Why do you think it is Watson," my friend asked, "that most English men like to dress in drag? Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Robert Morely, Morecombe and Wise. They all share this common trait." Holmes was unwrapping a pack of Quentin Crisps, as well as removing the disguise of Mrs. Peel. Certainly the stage had lost a brilliant actor in Holmes. He had nice legs, too.

Holmes was now in his old familiar dressing gown, filling his pipe with shag tobacco, made from the finest shag carpets. "Quick Watson, the sewing machine!" he shouted. I disapproved of this habit, and told him so. "Oh, stop complaining Watson. You'll make me lose a stitch." In these moods of his, he was impossible. The pattern, including the one on his arm, was often the same. He would measure the ash of cigar; inform me of some little known fact in history, like the Etruscans invented the first vacuum cleaner; recite a somewhat saucy limerick in Esperanto, and finally, quietly nurse on his violin. After a while he would start to thumb through the newspapers and magazines.

"Look at this Watson," he said to me, waving a copy of National Geographic. "It says here that penguins are mysteriously disappearing from the Antarctic. They can't understand why. But the answer is simple." I was always amazed at how quick my friend could understand a seemingly impossible situation.

"Good Lord Holmes!" How is that?" I asked.

"Elemenopee, my dear Watsong," Holmes said, casually sitting on his violin case. "Japanese fishermen are kidnapping the penguins, and smuggling them into Japan. The penguins are then used as doormen at various hotels in Tokyo. It's very cheap labor."

"Incredible Holmes!" I said, rising to go down the hallway, clutching my latest collection of Industrial Postcards. "How can anyone know whether or not they have a real Japanese doormen or a penguin instead?" I asked, standing by the door.

"Good question, Watson," Sherlock said, stuffing a new shag carpet into his pipe bowl. "I would imagine if your doorman takes his tip in fish, that would be a good clue."

[First published October 6, 1981.]

"...Now here in this forsaken jungle Hell, I have proven that I am all right!"

2010-09-27T21:33:00.000-07:00

And hoo boy, it's hot! Hellish heat. Late at night, and as Marilyn Monroe would say, "We're having a heatwave." This is obviously going to have an effect on today's entry. Please bear with me. Any crankiness for this week is barometric--not cinematic, as in past weeks.

As a matter of fact, Monday's film du jour was the Columbo 5th season episode starring Hector Elizondo and Sal Mineo. Hector plays a murderous, Middle Eastern politico. I've never seen this episode. My wife bought this set because of Patrick McGoohan, so the Hector episode is a bonus. I and my wife got to know Hector through my old, dear friends, Sandra Liddell and Harry Reese, talented artists and bookmakers, founders of Turkey Press in Santa Barbara. Hector's wife, Carolee Campbell, is also a talented bookmaker, and through Harry, the chain of friendships began. All very nice people, lovely memories in Sandra and Harry's home. And through their friendship, Hector became a dear friend and guest on Space Pirate Radio and my KTMS Entertainment Magazine radio show. So, despite the heat, I'm not as cranky as I was previous blog-time with Harry Brown or Werner Herzog.

So, onto the next bit. Here we are winding up September and it feels like we are halfway up the Amazon. Odd, as I write this from the miraculous community known as Santa Madre Teams Teresa ("Mother of Trucks!"). The All-Armenian City. More earthy, more working class than my previous haunts of Santa Barbaria. A more religious, conservative community than I'm used to, there are shrines to Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pep Boys at every crystal meth lab on every block near you. This is the home of Darth Maul-De-Nada. Culture? You'll find it in yogurt. This is the home of tri-tip, trucks and big tires. Once a year, men with accordions and bubble machines ride cattle. They call it the Lawrence Welks Rodeo. Wunnerful, wunnerful. It's a military town with an overflow of people who work at the Jean-Claude Van Damme Denberg Air Force Base. It's like an old Bowery Boys movie: spooks galore (Langley types who hate the cold).

And you can hardly call it a jungle. Vegetation has long ceased to exist here. Between pesticides and petroleum, anything green and over 1' doesn't exist. This town hates trees. The only trees in this town are actually cell phone towers. The native Indians, before creating casinos, called this place the Valley of Sickness and refused to live in it. They chose the highlands. Sometimes I think it's purgatory or a rejected M. Night Shyamalan script. And that's bad. Because every script by M. Night Shyamalan should be rejected (sorry, I can't stand him...it takes him 2 and a half hours to do what Rod Serling could do in 20 minutes).

So here in this forsaken jungle, it's kind of jungle free. I certainly don't feel the sort of atmosphere of Tarzan or Ramar of the Jungle or Jungle Jim. No Johnny Weissmuller. No Jon Hall. No Sabu. Some, but not enough Maria Montez. And definitely no Turhan Bey. So, "See Jungle See Jungle..." What does this all mean? Well, you may ask.

"..Outlawed in a world of science which previously honored me as a genius..."

2010-09-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

An old friend, Joe Palladino, wrote me a while back telling me that he was putting together a film about the history of radio station KTYD and would I be involved. Like a smart ass, I joked "seriously, is KTYD still around?" and made derogatory comments about voice tracks created in Bakersfield and endless ads for shooters on another Eagles classic rock weekend. As I have said here before, for me, KTYD died in 1985.

Joe's letter created mixed feelings in yours truly. Anyone who has read previous recollections about Space Pirate Radio can easily detect a love/hate relationship with the station. Let me try to explain some of the smoke and mirrors here. I really love radio. I mean, I really love radio. The magic of it. All its possibilities. The problem is that not everyone in radio shares this enthusiasm. So when I found myself involved with freeform station KTYD in 1973, I assumed we were all free radicals, doing it for the passion, the love of music and trying to make a change. I wasn't expecting so many of those long-haired, dope smoking individuals to be harboring a desire to turn into balding, 50-year-old businessmen so early. Some of them were already bald, but they had that Ben Franklin look. So you still thought they were cool. But back to KTYD. There's been much written about the station and I'm amazed at how wrong a lot of it has been. There was a KTYD reunion a number of years back, held at Fess Parker's thing (in 1974, we would have wanted to burn the place to the ground--not assess its property value). Many old faces gathered together. Sadly for me, the gathering of the tribes bordered on the pathetic. Instead of a reunion of kindred spirits and creative anarchists, it had the air of a sodden sales convention for the Scooter Store. Ironically at this party, I was the designated driver. Besides the horror of seeing the room filled up with sales lemmings of the new KTYD (those who had signed a pact with Clear Channel), the greatest disappointment was the fact that no one remembered anything of substance or importance. There was a lot of talk about drugs and who had or hadn't been with the female music director. But basically, the revelation of then and when in the here and now was completely absent.

The old cliche is that if you remember the '60s, you didn't live them. And the same could be said for the '70s. I lived them and pretty hard. But I recall them quite vividly, more often fondly, rather than with horror. Of course, the Virgo in me (theme--"thanks folks for all the cards and letters") retains being an archivist, so that might help. So I've kept the pertinent information. As is, the basic facts about KTYD should be that it began in September of 1973 and that the program director, Larry Johnson from San Jose, turned an old county & western/oldies, Dick Clark owned, canned radio station into a living, breathing, freeform rock broadcaster. 24 hours, pretty much all live. So Klassic KTYD 37 years ago (oh, me organs) pretty much revolves around who Larry Johnson hired to the station. Besides Larry, the main headliners were music director, Laurie Cobb, and disc jockeys Ray Briare, Mark Ward, Bill Zimmer, and Jim Trapp. It is at this part of the story, kids, where Larry brings on David and Tiny Ossman of the Firesign Theatre to do their stoney, retro nostalgia show, Easy Street. And, has been noted in a previous remembrance, yours truly is in the entourage.

The story so far. As you remember last time, I enter the 8th floor studios of KTYD, high atop the 'Hotel' Granada Theatre building. I get a weird feeling that something's going to happen here. And I am quite sober. As mentioned earlier, Larry Johnson, friendly and outgoing, is a big fan of the Firesign Theatre. So anyone who is a friend, is probably somewhat annointed. Up until this point, even with my previous background in radio, I assumed that the concept of Space Pirate Radio was so obvious, that someone else would probably do it ahead of me. But they hadn't. And especially not on commercial radio. So, struck by a bolt of energy from Zeus, this son of Hermes decides I will pitch the concept to Mr. Johnson over lunch. I explain the idea for the show and what I wish to do and he agrees. Without an audition tape, resume, or sound sample, an on the air premiere is scheduled for Saturday night/Sunday morning, January 27, 1974.

Now this...is before "founding" members Edward Bear and Dave Heffner have even been heard on the station. Not to try to pick nits here, but so often people who came on years later are listed as the original KTYD. I don't even claim to be original because I wasn't there in September of '73. I was there in November of '73. In my mind, so-called "founding" members of KTYD are pretty much all together in the first year. The ball is rolling. The feeling is there. The spirit is happening. People are picking up on what's going on. Disc jockeys around the state and country are hearing the buzz and want to be a part of it. As long as Larry Johnson is the program director, later people coming onboard are still a part of the momentum of the station, but the fundamentals have already been established.

This is not to discredit those who came later. On the contrary, the station fleshed out even more and became for the community the idealistic, multi-formated, (dare I say it) utopian radio station that the corporate blood suckers would do their best to disassemble. I mean, freeform, man. This means that at one time we had complete freedom. We didn't make much money; in fact, we were quite poor. But we felt rich in knowing that everything we did was based on what we believed in. The music we played, we loved. We weren't told by some wanker market consultant from Florida that the song we were playing had tested well in Sarasota...we played what we liked and what the audience connected with. So to wrap up this KTYD thing, the original station was a collection of eclectic souls with many tastes, many talents, and many flaws. But we did it 'cause we loved it and you knew that sometime, somewhere on that station, what you particularly liked, whatever style of music (from blues, jazz, hard rock, folk, country, classical, avant-garde, whatever), you knew that someone on that station was playing it 'cause they dug it and you dug it. And that's why you tuned in. For a while, you could tell there were no strings on the voices that were talking to you. No puppets. So we are back to my love/hate relationship with radio. I love it for what it was and what it could be. I hate it for what it became and what it is. In a way, this continues my original concept for Space Pirate Radio. Although a part of KTYD, I felt apart from KTYD. Space Pirate Radio was always a sputnik. A satellite revolving in orbit around home base. Beaming a message down, hoping to reach a few. In orbit, necessary...but separate.

"I was classed as a madman, a charlatan..."

2010-09-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

My choices in film viewings before I contemplate these writings seems to be having a questionable effect on the direction the article takes. A few weeks back, an attempted innocent entry on my bohemian bachelor lodgings went all Cockney Charlie Bronson thanks to having watched Michael Caine in Harry Brown just before. So this week, we've just finished the new David Lynch produced Werner Herzog film, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. Oh boy. It's kind of happening again. Though I'm trying my best not to be as cranky as I was post-Harry Brown, my planned attempt to continue my Virgo-themed series for the month of September has been somewhat fumed by the filmic experience. This is a fairly recent occurrence. As this is my 43rd entry, I have watched many other films previous to writing with no outward effect. Perry Mason episodes seem to be the most innocuous. But Volume 2 of the 5th season isn't out yet, so we have been forced to pick and choose from the weekly offerings of new dvd releases. This has caused these latest permutations.

So now instead of waxing nostalgic, commenting on the music and arts, dazzling you with the wit and wisdom of things gone by, I am trying to detox from the 91 minutes spent beforehand. And I feel a rant coming on. I will try to keep it soft and fuzzy. David Lynch and Werner Herzog. That's a collaboration that's got to be interesting, right? If there were ever two directors whose names spoke mental health, these are it. I used to be a really big supporter of Herzog in the '70s. I mean, Klaus Kinski and the music of Popol Vuh. Aguirre. A fan from day one. Played all the soundtracks on Space Pirate Radio. Had them all. German and French vinyl. His stuff was right up my alley. Being German helped. David Lynch however, was not my favourite. I was not in awe of Eraserhead like everyone else was. This is probably because I preferred my mental illness from Europe. Disturbing images by Americans was too close to home. I mean, I was working for these type of people. Fellini, Roeg, Russell, Antonioni and Bunuel interested me because they were not like the bosses I worked for. And even my favourite American directors tended to be the ones who went to London or Europe, like Lester and Kubrick. So what does this mean? I prefer my madness European-style.

This attempt at a world view, coming from a US born person, was more often than not, met with confusion or hostility. I mean, it took forever to explain the concept of Space Pirate Radio: foreign, experimental music being heard in the US of A. "But they're singing in I-talian. I can't understand what they are saying." "But this is good," I would reply. "You can make up your own translation. They may be singing about crab lice and washtubs, but it sounds like pure poetry." A well known disc jockey on air once asked me what the band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) meant in English. I said it meant "good sex on the radio." Premiata, meaning prime, Forneria meaning fornication, and Marconi, the inventor of the wireless. I just made it up. I didn't know until later that it actually meant the number one bakery in the city of Marconi I was matto. Capiche? Playing the leetle joke. Oh Eddie, kiss me goodnight.

Okay, so I succeeded in getting Space Pirate Radio on the air and I succeeded in producing several of my plays, but trying to do film was something else. In 1979 I did a 20 minute short film called Crackers At Eight. It was a shortened version of themes from my 1973 play, Nothing Is Sacred. A lot of short sketches dealing with a day in television where the afternoon matinee movie, a sci-fi film called Crabs, ends up being the real thing by the evening news. This was where I wanted (at the time) to take the direction of comedy. It was for myself, a progressive evolution of all the comedy, music and art that had influenced me up to that time: Mad magazine, Steve Allen, Jack Parr, Ernie Kovacs, the Goon Show, the Beatles, and Firesign Theatre. It was far from perfect. But it was for me, fresh and fast. At at the time, very new. The finished project caught the attention of the vice president of comedy development at 20th Century Fox. She loved it. Thought it was perfect for the studio. She just wanted to fly it past her boss, the president of comedy development. A meeting is set up, I drive down to the Fox Studios, have my reserved parking permit, armed with my quarter inch tape of the show. Entering the plush offices of El Presidente de Comedia, being seated in comfy chairs, we watch my humble effort. VP lady starts to laugh and smile as first jokes become visual. But then she notes El Jefe is not sharing in on the fun. She begins to cover her mouth and acts like a new internal discomfort is beginning. The signs become visible. The sounds and flurry of images are having no effect on her boss. Her enthusiasm has disappeared. End of showing. El Jefe says to me, "this is not the direction comedy is going in. We here at 20th Century Fox know that real comedy has to be story based, which is why MASH is our most successful television series. This sketch style humor will never catch on." I believe I told him he was quite wrong. And I was amazed that the president of comedy development was not aware of something called Saturday Night Live or Monty Python's Flying Circus. A true visionary. Thank god he saved the world from my comic masterplan. Perhaps we can also thank him for delivering the solid, story driven comedies that Fox would later be known for. The list is endless. Which one is your favourite, kids? Date Movie, Epic Movie or Meet The Spartans?

"Virgin On The Ridiculous"

2010-09-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

September. The month of Virgo. When seven turns into nine. The third earth (sign) from the sun. The Mercury Players. Quicksilver Messenger Service. I'm in the year of my Septembers. Astrology used to play a large part in my pagan past. I used to be into it a lot. Every girl I dated, I needed to know when she was born, exact time and location. The Sun sign was important, but so was Moon, Mars, Mercury, and especially Venus (heh-heh) and Rising. Placement of the Moon? Lunacy, perhaps. It did seem that certain patterns emerged. But, oh well.

On early Space Pirate Radio shows, I even did a weekly astrological/astronomical outlook. Telling the audience where the planets were and in what elements for that particular show. It's not that I wanted to turn into Walter Mercado with a weekly los mundos astrologicos type of thing (I've never met the fellow, but I kind of like him even though he reminds me of a combination of Liberace meets Jon Anderson). Those introductions disappeared after a while, but later on in the '80s, I got to know poet-astrologer Rob Brezsny. He came on Space Pirate Radio, did a wonderful interview, promoted his book at the time, and I suggested that he do twelve astrological IDs for the show--a different one for each sign--which I would play at the appropriate time of the year. In the ID, he would introduce himself, kindly say he was with yours truly, impart a bit of philosophical arcana, and then say that "today the Sun is in Virgo, the Moon is in Space Pirate Radio." Twelve of these, which I could rotate throughout the year during the show within the music mix. It added to the alchemy.

But back to Virgos. Obviously I'm partial. I understand the Virgo mindset. Technically, extremely critical. Virgo, the Critic it was sometimes called. Perfectionist. Analytical. Twit. Or twit like. Definitely with essence of twit. As in too witty. Conway Twitty? No. Twit. Sometimes appearing extremely cold and arrogant. But that would be pure Virgo. Being aware of the mix of elements, it's important to tone it down a bit. For myself, I was glad to turn the earth into a bit of mud with a few water signs: Moon in Cancer, Cancer Rising, and the ever notorious and obsessive Venus in Scorpio. You've seen my bathroom, haven't you?

Virgos good and bad: Roger Dean, the artist who designed the fabulous logo for Virgin Records, Virgo. Romantic author Goethe, Irish fantasist Sheridan Le Fanu, and famed Ruskie Leo Tolstoy (hey, it's the Labor Day weekend...excuse me while I turn down The Internationale). Greta Garbo was born on my birthday, that double G thing. I'm a triple G myself (Garbo Talks, but Guden Walks!). Frankie Avalon was born on my birthday too. An early hero of mine, David McCallum, is a Virgo born on September 19. In my high school years I often patterned my look on Illya Kuryakin: long blond hair, black turtleneck, black coat. I thought this cool Scotsman portraying a jazz-loving, Russian U.N.C.L.E. agent was the epitome of hip iconoclasm. It wasn't until very late in life that I discovered quite the opposite about him. This cool, mod Russian is actually a Socialist-fearing, Bush-loving conservative. Oh god! And I thought Thrush was the enemy! More on this later.

Lyndon B. Johnson was a Virgo. That's awful. Hated the man till he had a final days mea culpa. Virgos don't normally get along with fellow Virgos. I found this to be true. In most cases, when I was single, if I met a Virgo woman, there was little spark between us. So I never could understand the supposed romance between Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, both Virgos. Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, fellow Goons, were both born on the same day, September 8. And Sophia Loren is not the only beautiful Virgo. Raquel Welch is also amongst the vestals.

Oh yeah, besides that David McCallum misinformation, I once thought that Twiggy might be my perfect soulmate. This was only because she and I were born within 24 hours of each other: her in Neasden, UK; me in Detroit, USuck. Oh well, that was probably a case of minor delusion. I was in a movie with Twiggy, but unfortuantely I never met her. Probably for the best. If I had spoken about this, it might have come off as a bad scene from little known British cult film, Goodbye Gemini. That would have been bad. Nice soundtrack, though.

Santa Barbara Surrealism

2010-08-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

Traditionally, the University has been more than just the seat of higher learning. In the past, the Halls of Academia have often been, more than not, the hotbed of radical thought. The ivy covered walls of colleges in London, Paris and Vienna have seen the stirrings of innovative thought, deemed rebellious and unacceptable at first, only later to become the modus operandi of current teaching.

The pattern remains the same. How many names come to mind? Copernicus, Schiller, Byron, Shelley, Freud, Beethoven, Einstein, and Thurdwanger (the latter omitted due to his tragic death by boredom). And yet, this pattern seems to have been broken in the last century. The college appears to have settled in the role of factory, or monastery. The student as firebrand seems to have been replaced by a career-oriented, assembly line prototype. But that may be changing.

Perhaps we thought the last flurry of campus unrest was in '68. Without a Voltaire or Jean-Paul Marat as figurehead, the movement seemed quickly spent. The time seems ripe for another campus controversy. It may be happening now, and with an artistic figure of the past as its center. Our own local University seems up in arms over the current exhibition of works by German surrealist Garcon Garcon.

It was 1919 when young Dieter Lichtenbowel attended the Academy of Certain Things in Cologne, Germany. He had already published his thesis, Pre-Christian Ladder Worship. Dieter was tutoring a class in Hardware Symbolism in the Old Testament. His theories were bold, unorthodox. He was beginning to make a name for himself. It was Klaus, and was made of cardboard. Later he made another name for himself. This time it was Hans, and was constructed of thin wood, brown paper and string. He tried to make another name for himself, this time out of cloth. He asked a cloth merchant to cut him out a piece of muslin. The merchant, however, was nearly deaf, and misunderstanding, tried to cut out a piece of a passing Moslem. This ended Dieter's name making period.

Dieter enjoyed the company of his artist friends. He envied their ability to paint. "Could not pure philosophy and art come together?" he wondered. He decided he would try to make it happen. He left the academic world of Cologne, and in 1920, headed for Paris.

The years of 1921 and 1939 were the productive ones for Dieter Lichtenbowel. Paris was a constant source of inspiration to him. He hung around the Bohemian coffee shop and nightspots with his artist friends. He talked endlessly about the mixture of art, religion and workshop tools. He even changed his name. Garcon Garcon was adopted because they were the two words he used most often in cafes. Either in the Chez Bon Tits Cafe, or the all German Cabaret Dumpkopf, Dieter was heard shouting to the waiter for refills.

One could talk at lengths about Garcon Garcon's Paris life, but for us it is enough to say he created his best work at this time. He made new impressions in the world of surrealist art. The expression gaga surrealisme was coined from his name. His works either outraged or delighted, but they never bored. One need only look at his output. Among many innovative works, Self Portrait By Somebody Else, and The Bride Stripped Bare Even By The Washing Machine Repairman still have the same effect today as they did in the '20s and '30s. This seems evident especially by current attempts to ban Garcon Garcon's exhibition at the University. See it before it is run out of town.

Another minor controversy on campus appears to be the new course offered in the It's Extended series, Little Known Chinese Eccentrics. The course, taught by visiting professor Dr. Roger Frogner-Wham, has been raising eyebrows, and other body parts. For example, Dr. Frogner-Wham lectures on Chinese philosopher Confused Shoes (so named because of his habit of placing his left shoe on his right foot, and vice versa). Confused Shoes lived during the Bung Dynasty and invented a unique method of prophecy. He would take three men who suffered from hemorrhoids, toss them in the air, and from the way they fell, read the future. He called this Painful Rectal I Ching. Education is a wonderful thing.

[First published July 14, 1981.]

"I need a bohemian atmosphere."

2010-08-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. The environment of the study should be one of philosophical transcendence and inspirational bliss. However, this late entry in the month of Saint Augustine has become cranky because we just finished watching Michael Caine in Harry Brown. Yes, Michael Caine, that icon of '60s swinging London. "My name is Michael Caine." In his greatest film yet: Get Carter A Wheelchair. We as moviegoers should be thankful that today's savvy industry leaders refuse to let the Charles Bronson Death Wish franchise disappear. There is hope for every aging actor to become a revenge-driven vigilante. My heart breaks at the thought that this brilliant writing formula didn't happen sooner. How I would have loved to have seen Walter Brennan still active post-The Real McCoys, armed with an AK-47, gunning down drug dealers in Compton. Can't you picture Wilford Brimley pistol whipping some hood in Griffith Park terrorizing a blue haired lady with her chihuahua? But I digress. Back to Michael Caine. The swinging '60s icon. What a load of crap. Just because he wore black, horn-rimmed glasses as spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File didn't mean Monsieur Caine was a bookish, liberal intellectual. I've enjoyed so many of his early films, but just because they were set in a certain time and space doesn't mean the actor himself reflected our particular sympathies. Beware, my friend...Mr. Caine has always been a conservative Tory who will do any film as long as you meet his paycheck. Remember all those disaster movies of the '70s? The Swarm? And certainly from that point on, Michael Caine is at his finest. "I can't pick up my Oscar, I'm filming Jaws: The Revenge." Remember how bad his glasses looked? Hanging around with Joan Collins and all those questionable rich businessmen from Tehran? Oh, those were the good old days. I guess I'm going through a love/hate catharsis with Mr. Caine. I still own the original The Italian Job, the original Get Carter (and I guess I can give Michael credit for being good in the original Sleuth as well as the remake), and I really did enjoy the film Flawless. And I admire much about Pulp except for the animal killing. I can quote dialogue between him and Oskar Homolka in Funeral In Berlin. So what's the problem? Harry Brown, for one. And the fact that Michael Caine still does it for the money first and the art second. For every Hannah And Her Sisters, there's The Island and four other god awful titles that I do not wish to flog you with at this moment. Man, I am cranky. I just wanted to talk about my digs. Instead, here I am doing a bad Sight & Sound article about how Michael Caine's best films depend upon his director and screenplay writer. Oh my god. So how do I get out of this? Oh, okay. When Michael Caine was a struggling actor, he shared lodgings with another struggling bohemian actor, Terence Stamp.

Whew! Well, kids, there's nothing like those early artistic days for capturing the bohemian spirit. I had those days, yes sir, Jim. Before I got married, the Artist As A Younger Man enjoyed the environment and the enthusiasm that decorated it. A man's home was his Kastle, and in my Kase, sometimes it was in the truest Kafka sense. The hovel as a home had to reflect all of the passions that kept me young at heart, bladder and knee.

So now we are tuned into the Home & Garden channel on acid. Observe the neo-gothic, early Armenian, post-modern, pre-surrealistic, proto-psychedelic, art deco, with a hint of Swedish moderne, and a whiff of pre-Weimar, post-Bauhaus, early Russian-Turkish hallucination. A Frank Lloyd Wright design after a heavy Mexican dinner. A collision of Amish and Danish decor with Mayan/Pagan trauma. This is perhaps initially and shockingly evident upon viewing the illustrations on display. Note the cacophony of merging motifs and themes. One can see the pilgrim's attempt at building a tower of Babel made entirely of vinyl. Reaching to the heavens, this lost library of sound. Like a memory of fabled Alexandria, from Amon Duul II to Zabriskie Point.

The rooms (which in debate, could be considered just one room, including the shower) were not unlike an early salon. Tapestries on the walls, peacock feathers sticking out of German wine bottles, heroes and mementos on display. Trash, works of art and magical things too. Plus dust and wires. "Dustin Wires? Wasn't he that '60s actor who got it on with Anne Bancroft?" And speaking of German wine, as has been noted in earlier entries, Space Pirate Radio shows were fueled on the power of German white wine. Here now is photographic proof of the stockpile, strategically located next to the photo of Einstein on the back cover of the M album, the Japanese poster for Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the image of Pamela Stephenson as Magritte from The Face magazine. For anyone interested in the obscure, the plastic glass in front of the vintage Coca-Cola tray and green glass container of collected matchbooks is, in fact, the one given to me by Roger Waters upon my first meeting with Pink Floyd at the L.A. Sports Arena. The Chalice Revealed!

And scandalously we continue into the private quarters of the bedroom. Note the sinful one-sheet posters for Emmanuelle The Joys Of A Woman, Nastassja Kinski in Stay As You Are, and the obscured poster of Laura Antonelli in The Divine Nymph.

And finally, for adults only, the ultimate destination, the last place to hide, o banheiro surrealista erotico! Oh my!

Oh my, oh my! La salle de bains surrealiste erotique. El cuarto de bano surrealista erotico. Das erotische surrealistische Badezimmer. De erotische surrealistische badkamers. The erotic surrealist bathroom. Where hygiene and art come together in collage. I thought it was beautiful. More beautiful than the Louvre. Ironically, when I was in Paris visiting the Louvre, my parents who had an unexpected visitor, found themselves vacating their apartment and coming to stay at mine. Oh dear. Neither of them had ever visited the ESP (the erotic surrealist pissoir). My father said that being in the bathroom was rather disquieting. Wherever he looked, someone was munching on someone else. After hearing this, I came to my senses, became a Catholic and entered the priesthood. Sure.

"By gad, sir, you are a character."

2010-08-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

Slipping away from music for the moment and back to film. One of my most guilty pleasures is the love of character actors. As it has been apparent in previous entries, it is the character actors in the films that I tend to enjoy the most in my cinematic experience. Stars or leading actors motivate me less into a movie house than the support characters. With the release of each new film, it is the secondary names I look upon.

This love of character actors comes from my early childhood. Films of the '30s and '40s were always loaded with the interesting characters who were there to support, torment or bedevil the leads. Their names are etched in monochrome: from Peter Lorre to George Zucco; Lionel Atwill to Martin Kosleck. Many character actors could also be leads, like Basil Rathbone, Karloff and Lugosi, up to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. But for me, more than often, the secondary and even third-tiered actors were the most interesting. My god, the list is endless. I would rather watch Gale Sondergaard or Anna May Wong over Katherine Hepburn. In a way, I prefer the character actor to remain in the number 2 or 3 spot, rather than becoming the star vehicle. There are exceptions, including some of the names I've mentioned. Myrna Loy and William Powell are two more examples.

So we step into the Tardis and speed into my era, the Swinging Sixties. And a whole new chapter of character actors pop onto the scene. There are so many. Hopefully I will have time to mention them all. So stepping out of the police box, I find myself happy to be in the same time and place as the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Sixties? No, it's upside down. We are in the nineties. In my current guise as Arts & Entertainment Editor for radio station KTMS, as well as the on-going entity of Space Pirate Radio, I now find myself lucky enough to rub elbows and other body parts, with actors who appeared in many of the cult films that have delighted my peculiar tastes. In one 24 hour period, I have attended the film premiere of a movie starring Amanda Donohoe, a particular favourite actress of mine, who has worked with both Nicolas Roeg in Castaway and Ken Russell in Lair Of The White Worm. The film was Diamond Skulls, directed by Nick Broomfield (a lovely gentleman and an artist in his own right, who took the photograph of me and Amanda). I spent two pleasurable days in their company, extolling the joys of British cinema and many anecdotes about Oliver Reed.

It was at this premiere that I had the incredible pleasure of meeting one of the most friendly character actors of all time, Clive Revill. My wife who loves Star Wars still lets me in the house thanks to my close encounter with the original Emperor. Despite my proximity to this master of the Dark Side, we had more giggles and fun with his work in films like The Legend Of Hell House, Kaleidoscope, Fathom, The Assassination Bureau, and Modesty Blaise. He was so damned friendly. I like to think that he was just happy to meet somebody in America who knew his body of work. But seriously, he was genuinely delightful and thinking about it now, I could just give him a big cuddle. I mean, I relate to this cat. He has worked in so many interesting projects and with so many different people and yet, had none of the bullshit trappings of a showbiz entourage. I have the deepest respect for his art and talent. He personifies what it is about the character actor that inspires me. I am almost regretful that I didn't hustle him up to my show for more anecdotes and insights into his life experience.

Over the years, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival presented to me the opportunity to meet many, many artists in the film industry, past and present. I had the pleasure of getting to know the great Turhan Bey through the festival. This incredible man from the golden age of Hollywood. Another example of the classic character actor. What a gentleman. And what a voice. His IDs for Space Pirate Radio continue to give me chills. From his performance in The Mummy's Tomb to his work with Maria Montez and Jon Hall, and ultimately his career as a photographer in Vienna. The man is a class act.

It was also during this time that I got to meet Tyrone Power Jr. He and his lovely wife at the time, DeLane Matthews, were premiering the film Healer which also featured Turhan Bey and David McCallum. So Ty, who had never actually known his father, had inherited his father's good looks on top of an extremely muscular build. I felt that if his career had been handled successfully, he could have easily walked into the Zorro franchise that his father had made famous.

So now I'm not sure if this rant has been about character actors and/or the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. I certainly met many interesting artists during my involvement. Richard Farnsworth stands out. The old school, of course: Robert Mitchum, Bradford Dillman, Karl Malden, Anthony Zerbe, Don Murrary, Carol Lynley, Anne Francis, Richard Widmark and Michael Parks. Santa Barbara was the perfect eccentric city for character actors. I remember doing a radio broadcast with a highly inebriated James Brolin. And with him was Stuart Whitman, also equally lubricated. This was radio. And on the air, Stuart Whitman said that anyone coming into the restaurant that we were broadcasting from who was wearing a tie would have it cut off. Whitman, threatened to cut my tie off. This was very odd. I was wearing a turtleneck at the time.

"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."

2010-08-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

And with those words on the airwaves, the show starts. The music begins.

My wife loves concerts. She sees far more shows these days than I do. But blissfully, it was the music that brought us together. Now before I start sounding like Peter Fonda in that commercial for Flower Power, I...uh, oh nevermind. (I had dinner with Peter Fonda once, but that's another story. The Castle Of Otranto by Horace Walpole. That's another story too.) Sorry, I lost my mind there...

Oh, yes, the music. Concerts. Obviously, it was the music that inspired me to start Space Pirate Radio. However, most of my concert-going experiences happened after I began the show in 1973. As the show expanded in its range of music, I was able to attend more shows featuring the artists that I had played as import records only. My love of new, foreign music helped keep the discoveries coming. One artist or record label would inspire me to explore a different offshoot. If I saw a name of an artist or producer on one disc and found it on another, then that would tempt my curiosity to hear the sounds that were offered. This is what made it all exciting, folks. New discoveries. Archeology in sound.

My initial tendencies were to explore the experimental, electronic music from the Pink Floyd/psychedelic school that had inspired the Germans. Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel and especially Amon Duul II were the key inspirations for getting the show on the air. I was pleased to have the first show on commercial radio that aired these artists. Someone once described me as the John Peel of the US, but I was able to play the entire songs--full sides worth. The luxury of a 6 hour show late at night in the early morning hours.

There were, however, exceptions to the all-electronic mantra that the show seemed to pulsate to. But yet, there was still something magical and psychedelic and progressive to it all. One example came from the folk school. I used to believe that in the 60s, in London at the UFO Club, there were three schools of experimental music: space rock, as personified by house band, the Pink Floyd; space jazz, as represented by the Soft Machine; and space folk, as interpreted by the Incredible String Band. Each one of these three bands triggered off whole schools of musical experimentation by an unlimited variety of artists. Now I could do a doctorate thesis here, but I won't. Instead, I will detour with the space folk and mention Alan Stivell.

Alan Stivell at the time was a very interesting Breton artist who did for the Celtic harp what Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull had done with the flute. He made it jazz, man. Stivell was hugely popular in France and Europe but unplayed in the United States. His album "Renaissance of the Celtic Harp" was as spacey and innovative as anything else could be under the power of electricity. Space Pirate Radio was again the first place to showcase him on commercial radio. To listeners, his work was legendary. Quite magical. His live performances at such places as the Olympia Theatre in Paris were envied and appreciated. He had never performed in California. In 1982 that would change.

Stephen Cloud, a concert promoter in Santa Barbara, often took chances on shows that should be done for art's sake and booked Stivell at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History on February 11. Stivell would play the night before in San Francisco and follow the next day in Los Angeles with Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band. Cloud appreciated Stivell's music but wasn't sure the show would do well due to its eclectic nature. It sold out and had to turn many away. The success of the show prompted Stivell to return the following year at the Victoria Street Theatre. Stivell was a lot of fun to be with. Very easy-going. All the ladies were charmed by him. He came over to my apartment, did a casual interview and some fun IDs.

So back to concerts. It was always a high point to see a concert by someone you had admired and shared with on the air. And then to either have them on the show or hang out backstage and talk about this and that...quite fun, really. I am blessed to say that there have been quite a number of those moments. I've already mentioned a number of them here. There are others I wish to go into length with later. Tangerine Dream, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, were quite special. My two days with Mike Oldfield were unique. Steve Hackett and Rick Wakeman stand out. My dinner with Robin Williamson and his wife Janet turned into a very memorable show.

Oh, there were concerts before my show. The Standells ("love that dirty water") and the Knickerbockers ("Lies"), an American band that wanted to sound like the Beatles, both played my decrepit high school. I saw Janis Joplin after she had left Big Brother, debuting with her Kosmic Blues Band at the San Bernadino Swing Auditorium in 1968. Brought her a bottle of Southern Comfort and hung out in the first row. Janis headlined the show along with Lee Michaels, MC5 and some new band called Chicago Transit Authority. Oh my. Those horns. Snuck into a Mothers Of Invention/Alice Cooper concert at Cal State Fullerton. Later I would have Frank Zappa on my show and redefine the art of interviewing. Story to come later.

Anyway, the heyday of concerts was definitely during the Space Pirate Radio era of 1974-1994. From 1974 until about 1985, KTYD had a lock-in with just about every concert. There were high points and low points, both at the historic Arlington Theatre. The zenith: a co-promotion with Gentle Giant for a wonderfully relaxed yet powerful performance. The nadir: The Clash, where I felt we were all extras in a monster car rally performing A Clockwork Orange.

It saddens me to think of the concerts that nearly happened but didn't. Tangerine Dream would have played Santa Barbara years before they did my 20th anniversary party for Space Pirate Radio at the Ventura Theatre. And Genesis was going to do The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway at UCSB, but the promoter cancelled it because Fleetwood Mac was playing the same weekend. This saddens me. The tears are coming. But saddest of all is thinking that we had to turn down a one night only concert performance of Zamfir with Joy Division. Moron, this later.

Viva La Fiasco!

2010-08-09T02:06:00.000-07:00

It is summer again, and the joyous words ring out: Viva la Fiasco! Once more, the City Fathers (by a previous marriage) of Santa Barbara extend the open hand of friendship to la turista, the tourist. And it is to the visitor of our humble resort community that we invite to participate in the celebration of our proud heritage.

Perhaps for some guests, up on holiday from the City of Appliances or the San Industrial Valley, it is hard to catch the full spirit of things, as we salute the bones of the Spanish that we stand upon. But this feeling of detachment is only temporary. Even the most noxious airhead is soon caught in the grip of mad ethnic delirium that the ancients called los gringos locos. And after the plentiful consumption of salsa and tequila, the happy pilgrim is soon familiar with strangers, greeting them with the old world: saludos, Bien Vaginos!

But quite often the furtive plea is heard: "Can we see it all?" And the answer, of course, is: "Yes! Most definitely." Most of the festivities are obvious. But after the Parade, the Mission, the beaches, what then? Especially at night. Santa Barbara After Dark then becomes our quest.

We enjoy an exciting evening of street dancing. Notice how one can dance from the sidewalk to the street and back to the sidewalk again, without fear of stumbling on the curb, or missing a beat? The corners were contoured with this in mind.

And so, exhausted, yet elated from our dancing, we ask ourselves: "What next?" It is much too early to go back to the Motel 6. The question is to find the right bar or nightspot to continue our festive mood.

It is at this point that we separate the average tourist from the adventurer. There are many bars in this town. They appeal to the full spectrum of local society. But this author recommends only one nightspot that fully captures the spirit of Fiasco. It is the Club El Fuego.

Even the most seasoned local is not completely familiar with operations of the Club El Fuego. It is not easy to find. True, it runs parallel with Cabrillo and Carillo and against Castillo (streets which were named, by the way, to confuse outsiders and discourage new residents), the Club El Fuego is located on the little known streets of Las Pulgas and El Dumpster. It is worth the find.

The Club El Fuego was started in late 1963 by the retired Germanic-Hispanic, Juan Auf Deisdaz, who left his native Germany towards the end of the war, abandoning his modest lighting business. He relocated in South America first, followed by Mexico, and then finally settled in Santa Barbara with, or so it has been said, the aid of Richard Nixon.

Avoiding such idle gossip, let me say that Juan, as he likes to be called, is the most genial of hosts. Investing the money of his soap plant business in South America, the Club El Fuego has become "more of a home, than a business," as Juan describes. The description is an apt one. The interior is a harmonious combination of white clay and green palms, rattan furniture and 40s statuary from the Munich Olympics. What better environment to spend your late night Fiasco celebrations in. And don't forget to order the Naughty Margharita, the only drink based on a Gilbert and Sullivan rejection slip. It's a favorite, guaranteed to water your mouth and dampen your knees.

Feeling that late night glow, you can bask yourself in the memories of your Fiasco Day Holiday: Your visit to the shrine of Brojas Hymenez des Flores, Our Lady of the Sacred Maxi-Shield. True, Saint Barbara is the city's patron saint. But one must not forget this little known figure, and her assault against a bloody rampage.

Distant memories, perhaps. But pleasant ones, none-the-less. Memories, that I hope you, dear pilgrim, will take back and cherish forever. And then there is next year. In the land of Zorro and the Cisco Kid, and even Ronald Reagan and the Shah of Iran, a funny voice says: "Remember! Viva la Fiasco!"

[First published July 22, 1980.]

"I thought you were supposed to be in Paris."

2010-08-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

"I am in Paris."

August 1982. I am in the City of Lights. This is my first time here. The purpose of my visit is twofold. I am in Europe putting together the television pilot for Space Pirate Radio brilliantly titled "Space Pirate Video." Zounds! This is progress. My first purpose is to secure videos of French electronic and progressive artists that have never been seen before by western eyes. I am hoping to discover gems from such performers as Ange, Mona Lisa, Richard Pinhas and Magma. It is also my intention to have a meeting with Jean Michel Jarre and secure either concert footage or promotional videos for American release.

The other goal of my trip here (as it had been previously in England, before arriving in France via Munich) is to visit locations connected with Peter Sellers for my documentary on his life. In this case, it is to visit the infamous Crazy Horse Saloon. Located on the Champs-Elysees, this notorious burlesque hall was used in the filming of "What's New, Pussycat?" The interior of the building has remained relatively the same since the 1965 film. Ah! I love research. Watching the stage show with the beautiful tableau of female flesh, slightly vodka-fueled, I can see Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers in the room with Paula Prentiss on stage and Woody Allen in the wardrobe.

Between these two objectives is also the role of tourist with a purpose. My play Casanova's Lips, set in Paris, concludes with its Hitchcock meets the Goon Show ending atop the Eiffel Tower. Armed with a copy of the book published from the play, I decided to document its return to the scene of the crime. The proof is in the pictures.

Paris is a city of love. But like throughout the rest of Europe, I was on my own. In a sort of pre-Banksy way, I took one of my Space Pirate Radio t-shirts with me, and photographed that instead of the normal family holiday snaps.

I stayed at the Hotel de l'Observatoire in the Latin Quarter. Tiniest elevator in the world and it felt like a firetrap. Ah, Paris. Near the Sorbonne, my room faced a clocktower that rang every 15 minutes. Despite that, the neighbourhood was colourful. Very bohemian. In one store I saw a beautiful poster of Klaus Kinski in period garb. Long hair, lace cuffs and eyeshadow. I wanted to buy it, but I didn't think I could afford it. Why? Because I got robbed after walking out of the Crazy Horse Saloon. "Look, ze druken touriste walks from ze club. Ou est le wallet?" A thoroughly delightful way to end one's European adventure.

An American Zany In Europe

2010-08-03T00:31:00.000-07:00

London, Munich and Paris: three of the most exciting and artistically rewarding cities in the world (Pomona can be exciting also, but I'm dealing only with Europe here). Where does the pilgrim go, in search of his aesthetic roots? Westminster Abbey, perhaps; rich in the pageantry of English rule? The Munich Museum of Modern Art, maybe; loaded with its collection of Germanic Impressionism and post-Bauhaus Neo-Classicism? Or else, the Louvre and the Bauborg Museums, the two poles of Parisian art? Not me. I was checking out the local temperatures in the X-rated cinemas.

A sociologist at heart, a scientist at foot, and a degenerate at any other body part you'd like to mention, I enthusiastically ventured forth on my study of European tastes, as reflected in its A-Dult Entertainment.

London was my first stop, and I was quite ready for the sinful delights of Swinging London. In the West End, I found myself at the Moulin, a complex of five cinemas, each with three features of steamy film fare. I chose Cinema 3, with the triple bill of Come Play With Me 3, Mary Millingtons' True Blue Confessions, and The Daughter of Emanuelle. Alas, the experience was a disappointment.

First, the cinemas are a major fire hazard, with only one entrance/exit for each show, with each row of seats ending against the wall. And the films? Not worth dying in this potential pyro-hall--in England everything is rated and then censored. And I mean everything. Cigarette commercials, in fact, all commercials, begin with the brown and white Board of Review Rating. In the X-rated films themselves, all the steamy parts are removed, thus turning an imported romp of naked German schoolgirls into a patchwork of sight and soundtrack. "Tongue slowly glides down thigh..." And Zappo! A sudden change of musik, and tongue has arrived at knee, with the profound hint of topographical explorations deleted. After the 306th cut, with everyone suddenly dressed and smoking ciggies, I'm exhausted of the experience.

In London, to see the type of fare available at the Pussycat in Ventura or the Screaming Beaver Theatre in the City of Appliances, one must be a dues paying member of a cinema club. Suddenly London swings a little less, and in certain circles. Munich, however, restored my faith in trouser tightening movies.

Sometimes I think Germany invented Sex. Maybe Sex in Other Places than the Home. Munich is a beautiful city, though perhaps not the healthiest place because of the elevation. Walking down the Schillerstrasse (as most streets in Munich are something strasses, usually named after Bavaria's greatest, like Leopold, Ludwig, and Klaus Kinski), I found myself at the Blue Movie Kino, featuring two imported items. One was the American film Inside Desiree Cousteau, dubbed into German. The other was a French scorcher entitled Die Madschen Vom Paris Pigalle, likewise dubbed.

Paying my certain DM, a man says to me, "Bier?" "Nein," I replied, to which he says, "Nein?" in shock, his false teeth falling out on the counter display of Der Kracker Jacks. Come to find out, the bier is included in the admission. They give you two biers, a large cup, and put them in a small wire bike basket. These baskets fit in a rack behind the large and comfortable loge chairs, a holder also ready for your cup. What comfort! And the surprises aren't yet over. The films are in Super 35mm with Dolby sound! Suddenly grunts and groans of passion emit behind you, and it's not the couple two rows back--state-of-the-art pornography. And the films? Well, let's just say I'm glad I brought my rubber jodhpurs with latex curry sack. And I've never been able to get my old hair style back. For weeks I eyed mail boxes with bad intent, and still go into a cold sweat when anyone says, "Du machts meine loins gertingle." I hope to visit Munich again soon for another dose of PVS (Perverse Visual Stimulus), though I'm not sure my heart or laundry can take it.

In Paris I visited Le Gate cinema, which was showing a French-Spanish porno called Vicenses A Ibiza, which was pretty fair, especially after Germany. And no bier here (I was amazed that in Germany, with all those bottles around, not one went rolling under the seats, was dropped or thrown at the screen. That would never happen in Ventura). All I remember vividly about Paris pornography was that men kept coming out of the bathroom, but no one ever went in. Curious. Le Gate cinema was in the Montparnasse district of Paris, so, hopefully, things are different on the other Banke, Montmartre and the Pigalle.

Eschewing film, I visited the notorious Crazy Horse Saloon, but that's another story. A friend of mine, meeting some French visitors, told them of my Crazy Horse experience. "He went to the Crazy Horse?" they asked in disgust. "It is for tourists." "Didn't you visit Disneyland?" asked my friend, and the conversation closed. By the way, I did see the Louvre. I remember people dropping like flies from the humidity, the Mona Lisa smiling sardonically at her voyeurs, and lots of big paintings with naked people on them.

[First published March 2, 1983.]

"For one who has not even lived a single lifetime...you're a wise man, Van Helsing."

2010-08-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Pardon me here, people. This is an awkward follow-up to the previous entry. Since that post, I have been digging among the archives and found some artifacts relating to that time and more. Hence the reason for the candid shot of Vincent Price and myself at the aforementioned dinner. Better now than later.

However, this places me still in the realm of my adventures with the Count Dracula Society. So let us step into the Tardis and head back to the end of 1969 as I prepare for my first trip to London. I am armed with letters of introduction and the home addresses of both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As a dedicated Anglophile, I am foolishly considering this trip to London to be permanent. Donald Reed, the president of the Society, has graciously furnished me these letters in my capacity as Vice Chairman of the Count Dracula Society to be a liaison to these two great actors who are being honoured for their work. Peter Cushing and his wife Helen live in Kent. Christopher Lee is in London living in Cadogan Square, his neighbours including Boris Karloff and horror author Dennis Wheatley (of whom Christopher Lee will produce and star in his "The Devil Rides Out").

I venture out into the foreign city to locate Cadogan Square. Finding myself in the moody and mysterious Square, I locate the residence of Mr. Lee. Pushing the buzzer, I find myself speaking to his wife. Lee has just arrived from making a Fu Manchu film and he has the flu...Flu Manchu? Our conversation will have to be the next day and on the telephone. The telephone will likewise be my first contact with Peter Cushing and it will also be with his wife. She is absolutely delightful; extremely pleased that her husband's work is so well-liked by the appreciative Americans. I can understand why after her passing, Peter was so affected. But for the time being, the omens seem to be working against my purposes. Meetings will come later.