Back to the Future. Insanely furtive subversion of the Reaganite era, or a total embrace of it?

Subtitle: Is it wrong that I found the suggestion that a hep white kid did invent Chuck Berry instead of the other way around way more disturbing than all the near-incest?

You know, I was going to slide that in somewhere in the middle, but I am way too pre-occupied with it. I'm not sure I wouldn't have still been uncomfortable if he'd played Hound Dog or Shake Rattle and Roll. The idea that all that came out of Elvis rather than Chuck Berry would have seemed an insult too.

Not that I'm denigrating Presley or his effects, but let's face it, NASA agrees with me. Elvis's Ed Sullivan appearance might have been what introduced this world to Rock'n'Roll, but Johnny B Goode is what got sent up in the Voyager spacecraft. Just in case aliens heard President Carter's message, some Stravinsky and whale songs and went "Yes, but do they know how to party?" that question would damn well be answered.

So you know, it's almost a fitting tribute that he goes through all the best theatrics of rock and roll starting square from the Chuck Berry walk into the Jimi behind the head guitar solo, into The Who windmill into some Angus Young moves. Almost, that is, until it loops back around to Chuck Berry having actually stolen rock and roll from Marty McFly. Now once again, some hep young white kid listening to black music is responsible for rock and roll instead of the musicians who inspired him.

Don't get me started on civil rights movement being set into motion by some white kid's blithe suggestion to a black guy at a lunchroom that he should be mayor or something. Seriously, this was the 80s, couldn't anyone have vetted these things?

And yet. And yet. God I still fucking love this movie. I love that in the 80s they wore weirdness on their sleeve. Without being ironical about it. Without throwing up homages every ten or twenty seconds or whispering to the audience 'yes, we know we're being silly, so you can too, and not feel stupid for liking this.'

Crispin Glover as a romantic lead of sorts? What the hell were they thinking? Hindsight is 20-20 and all, but it seems all but impossible now to watch his performance and not see him as a man with barely a passing acquaintance with sanity. Which makes it all the more entertaining that we're all rooting for him the way we'd root for a Freddie Prinze Jr. back in my day.

It contains a completely earnest letter that starts off "Dear Dr. Brown, On the night I travel back in time at 1:30 AM, you will be shot by terrorists." Simple, straight to the point yet totally absurd.

It renews my love of the idea of telling people preposterous things while still acting deathly serious about it. Seriously, how fun would it be to tell every stranger you meet at a bar "I'm from the future."

Because the 80s were weird and they loved it. What scientific sense is there for a car to travel back in time when it goes 88 mph because it has a flux capacitor? I dunno, why is Jon Cusack being chased by a maniacal paperboy who just wants his two dollars? Ummm, because it's awesome that way?

Back to the original line of inquiry. Do I love this movie? I mean I didn't pay to go see it on the big screen to intellectualize it. I went to shriek with joy with a theater full of fans when Doc Brown tells Marty that when that baby hits 88 mph, you're gonna see some serious shit. (Sidebar, my friend pointed out that Doc Brown probably smoked more reefer than the rest of Hill Valley combined. I'm inclined to agree.) I went to burst into spontaneous applause when Biff hits that manure truck. I went to squirm and go Yeessshhh when Marty's mom tries to make out with him. I'm a cheeseball, dammit!

Which is why I'm all-fired disturbed about the fact that it just might be total Reaganist propaganda. After all it's about cinematizing history, basically, which is kind of what Reagan represented. Doc said it himself "Of course your president has to be an actor, he appears on television all the time" According to Wikipedia at least, Zemeckis is a Democrat, maybe that points to spoof?

Let me sum up the plot of Back to the Future in a trite overintellectual way, shall I? Your life in the present sucks because of mistakes your parents made and have gotten in the habit of continuing to make. So you go back in time and make them heroes based on what you know of the world now, and what you've seen in movies. This nearly destroys you, but in the end, because it's Hollywood, it succeeds, and your present is made better because you transformed the past into a cinematic ideal.

I mean, christ, look at their choice of eras, could it be more American? The good ol 50s, start of the American century. The future where technological advances dominate absolutely everything. And of course the Wild Wild West.

The founding of the country, fraught with ideas argued in newspaper editorials and not half the unity we're taught to believe? Of course not. The civil war? Cough...Hello? Slavery? Uncomfortable...cough. Pre-history? Giant mammoths or fierce dinosaurs? Dunno, did they speak English? Plus it's hard to have a skateboard chase if there's no pavement. Okay, so if my theory had solid legs, they could have chosen WWII, but still!

Nope, it's the beginning of the American century, the culmination of American genius and the frontier that gave us that can-do spirit in the first place. When things were simple. You looked to what was yours. You looked out for your fellow man. And your six-shooter was the law. Oh yes, I did read Gunfighter Nation in college.

And yet. And yet. I feel like with how fraught with peril each of these movies is once they start embarking on this cherry-picking of history, that maybe, just maybe, it's a warning and not just full-on "It's Morning in America" style Reaganite euphoria. But then again, maybe the movies are so good because it's Hollywood movies like they used to be.

To use an analogy that's been applied to nearly everything at this point, it's like Wile E. Coyote. Did old school adventure suspense Hollywood movies never have a plothole if you paid attention to every damn detail? Of course not. But because there was adventure, charm, excitement and characters you enjoyed spending time with (Cary Grant, I'm looking at you), you raced off that cliff. And it kept you going, not looking down, so you never noticed you were on nothing but thin air and momentum. Sure if you'll look down, you'll plummet to your doom, but that kind of pessimism sounds like a personal problem.

I'd rather have fun than be right.

And how can I not?

Comic-con

Here I am, at the Javits Center, completely baffled and bewildered. Competing in my head are my overwhelming excitement to be among the Batmans, and Nightwings and Spideys, and the persistent pounding that the last two or three beers I had last night left me with.

I'm disoriented enough as it is, and the crowd scene going on just gets me more so. In my head, I'm warbling 'Hungover again at Comic-Con, Searching for a damn schedule." The meter doesn't quite work. I know this.

But finally I get my hands on a schedule and map. I've missed The Science of Battlestar Galactica. I've missed Stan Lee (though I doubt I would have gotten in.) But there's plenty I'm still in time for.

For instance, the panel on The Thing prequel. Like any good nerd, I get two warring impulses upon hearing of a remake or a prequel. On the one hand there's a 'oh man, The Thing is awesome, seeing more of The Thing would be fucking awesome.' But on the other hand, there's the certain knowledge of, if a production company is deciding to do a remake, prequel or sequel, it is because they don't have a more original idea. And if they don't have the ability to come up with original idea, then maybe they should keep their filthy mitts off of material that was original. Diluting the legacy of great ideas down to weak dishwater.

That being said. The Thing prequel...might not be totally a crime. Sure none of the actor's panel seemed the slightest bit as cool as Kurt Russell or Keith David, but the director and the producers knew the right answer to a bunch of the right questions. The most memorable aspect of the Carpenter movie? The paranoia and dread of the blood testing scene. Practical or CGI effects? Practical. How is it structured in relation to the Carpenter's? It is the Norwegian base, so half of the cast will be Norwegian, and the stuff that MacReady finds there will all be explained out, so it fits in snugly onto the beginning of the Carpenter film, ending with the dog running off into the snow, with the helicopter running after it.

Maybe, just maybe, it won't suck.

But, confession time, I was at the Thing prequel panel in order to get a good seat for the next panel. The Women of Battlestar Galactica with Tricia Helfer, Michelle Forbes, Nikki Clyne and most most MOST importantly, Katee Fuckin' Sackhoff.

I could go on for a whole blogpost about how awesome Starbuck is, and wouldn't be saying anything that hasn't been said before. But let's just leave it at, it was a lifechanger and a breath of fresh air to see a woman playing the vice-ridden loose cannon hotshot pilot. But not playing it as some hardass, but with giggles, shit-eating grins and the certain knowledge that she is not someone to be frakked with. Plus having her be an actress with some meat on her bones, who still gets plenty of play without dropping the tomboy act and obeying perfect female conventions.
Unflippin' heard of.

In person, Katee Sackhoff does not disappoint and I was pleased to find out that Tricia Helfer was also a total badass. Listening to them banter with each other sounded so natural to my ears and I felt like I was eavesdropping on a barroom conversation between old friends.

On why they decided to learn to ride motorcycles.
" Well, My husband and Katee's boyfriend both ride, and we got sick of riding bitch."
"Not that there's anything wrong of riding on the back, I mean, you can wave at people, you can make sandwiches. You can drink because you're not really driving."
"You texted me once when you were riding in back."
"Yup" mimes texting "I'm riding bitch. It sucks."

On filming sex scenes. "To save money in editing, there was that time when I was filming that sex scene where I was with Lee, no wait, damn I don't remember character names anymore, but I was having sex with Gaius and fantasizing I was having sex with Lee, but they filmed it all at once, and you were in the corner, wagging your finger up at me. And it's like 'Alright, Jamie, that's enough, James, get on 'er.' And Tricia's there in the corner glowering at me. "

On fans saying strange things to her "Were you there when that woman came up to me and said she wanted to have my babies? I had to tell her that there was a basic biological problem with that."
"That you're a woman."
"No, because I was Starbuck. C'mon, if I had one, it would be HUGE."
And she's saying this while wearing a miniskirt. Man, oh man, Katee Sackhoff was every bit as awesome as I was scared she wouldn't be.

Then out came Michelle Forbes and Nikki Clyne. Cally? I mean who gives a rat's ass, although it was funny to see the combination of horror and giggles inspired in the audience by her talking about trying to take her baby with her out of an airlock.

Michelle Forbes was an impressively intelligent woman who talked about BSG and The Wire and feminism and roles for women in TV and movies.

Gotta say, it jumped out at me, comics fans are a very racially diverse bunch. I guess being a passionate nerd knows no color. I saw a Black Robin, an Asian female Robin, a female Nightwing, and more Jokers and HarleyQuinns than you can shake a stick at. I was really hoping for a Black Captain America, but no dice.

The only other panel I made it to was "Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, made up of authors of various humor books on Zombies. The one that just made my list was "Feed" because the authoress is a fascinatingly hilarious and unapologetically morbid and nerdy human being. I wanna get proper fucked up with her and watch Night of the Creeps like woah while she tells me about how the virology is incorrect.

She bragged about being voted most likely to raise something horrible in a cornfield. As a child she came out of her room after reading a pile of EC comics "Mom, can I raise the dead?" "Sure." "Can I have knife?" "No." "Some scissors?" "No." "Can I have the baby?" "Sure."

One of my favorite spiels of hers was about how zombies are the universal healthcare of monsters "To be a vampire you have to drink their blood, and be in their thrall or whatnot, start hanging out near crypts or with pale people. To become a werewolf you have to be stupid enough to go walking out on the moors on a full moon 'oh honey, we live in a world with werewolves, I'm just going to take a stroll out on a full moon to the convenience store to get some Haagen Dasz, do you need anything?' but the zombies, they come to YOU! You don't have to do anything stupid or anything at all really but be there and be biteable. Zombies are the universal healthcare of monsters."

Other great moment, guy dressed up like Doctor Horrible gets to the front and asks "As part of my evil plans I wish to raise the army of the dead, how do you suggest I do this?"

Other woman on the panel "I just watched Dawn of the dead and the contrast of the green pale skin and the greasy red shiny innards and thought 'oh, how pretty.'"

One member of the panel suggests that the resurgence of zombies, and them turned into humorous subject matter is a sign of the death knell of the genre. He gets roundly poo-poohed by the rest of the panel and the audience. Virology lady says "Night of the Creeps 1982! That was funny but zombie movies kept happening for the next twenty-five years!"

Awesomely, this panel cured my hangover, but I was still feeling pretty dead, and when I accidentally went to the wrong venue to see my buddy play, I took it as a sign that I should get a full night's sleep, and went home.

On the juke? One cannot talk about so-called lowbrow art with pretension without thinking of the Ramones.

They're back! They're back!

More than one person responded to my excitement at going to a pre-season Celtics-Nets game with shrugs and ticked off a list of the exact group of third-stringers I should be prepared to see.
But my faith was rewarded.

Our seats were good to begin with but after we joined the throng of autograph seekers to see if anyone we knew was going to come out, and it became pretty evident that no one was coming along to grab their rightful seats, Miranda and I gave each other a furtive glance and took ourselves some seats. In the second row. Roughly 15 feet away from the starting lineup as they entered.

I do mean starters too. Ray-Ray, KG, The Truth, Rondo, Shaq, Delonte, Big Baby, Nate Robinson, all ran right in front of us as they headed to the court to warm up. It's the closest I've ever been to a bona-fide pro-basketball (albeit preseason) game and it lets you see a lot of things more clearly.

Some are related to size matters. Like Shaq's feet are probably bigger than my head. Like people like Delonte West, Rajon Rondo, and Nate Robinson look like midgets next to the likes of KG and Shaq. Even more so than on TV. Had to keep reminding myself that they tower over me, and they are not at all what most people would consider short men.

Good game, Nets won for a while, then we caught up sneakily but surely. But oh no, trouble holding onto the lead, traded threes and foul shots in the last few minutes, but courtesy of Nate Robinson nailing shots and drawing fouls we prevailed. Granted he was the only non third-stringer on the floor at the time, but I feel reassured.

The returning Delonte got plenty of baskets. I cannot look at that guy without thinking "He was driving down the highway on a motorcycle with a loaded rifle in a guitar case strapped to his back. He is the original road warrior. Hot damn" and getting a little flushed. Unfortunately he left towards the end of the game, looking a little bit pained, so I hope that's no issue.

The starters played a significant chunk of one quarter each half and looked great. Rondo went head band-less. Wonder why?

But the real fun person to watch was Paul Pierce. We were close enough to hear him swear when he got fouled, but other than that he was this playful childlike guy all game. When he wasn't playing, he just hung out, still on the court, back against the wall facing the court, slouched over like some teenager, but plainly still paying attention.

He threw a towel at Big Baby when Davis was jogging over to the side of the court after being fouled. Big Baby reacted with a puzzled look.

One of the most endearing things ever, Nate Robinson got hard fouled trying to dunk and Pierce got up and sprinted, SPRINTED over to help him up, in t-shirt, warm-up pants and all. Think the ref chided him for it. But he just walked back over with this wide grin.

After he was out the second half, he wound the gatorade towel into this really funny hood thing and tucked it into his t-shirt. KG followed suit. In one of the time out huddles they looked over at each other and then each adjusted theirs. While he was in that silly get up he was like throwing kicks over one of the coach's heads and shadowboxing and stuff. I can't wait to see the pictures that my friend took.

I love LOVE LOVE this team and I can't wait for this season to start.

So it is the Crystals, and songs about looovvvinnng bad boys. Because they may break my heart again at the end of the season, but darn it, it's gonna be so fun!

Thirsty Tuesday

Just like Domino's back in college more than one New York City bar has realized that Two-for-Tuesday is an advertising slogan that sticks. Hence Thirsty Tuesday.

Stroll in to meet my attorney at a quarter to twelve for round one. Exchange weekends. His is punk shows, late nights and art exhibits. Gysin's Dream Machine.

I spent my weekend on the right side of the tracks and was in a proper Hamptons Beach house. This also involved a lot of drinking, but outside, wrapped up in a sweatshirt around a campfire, staring up at the stars.

On the occasions that I'm not at home in New York City, where the skyscrapers and the light pollution blot out all but a few, or back in Central Mass where the light pollution is little but the trees sure do cover up a lot, I marvel at how many stars you can see in the clear night sky. They come in freaking layers. Behind them, is that a cloud? Oh no, it's the Milky Way. With the ocean lapping at the rocks you sit on, and a campfire in front of you begging for marshmellows, it's the perfect environment for a scary story.

But I have no takers. Only one of our troop is left outside, and she's too stoned to find my scary story funny or interesting, only scary. Which is strange, because I'm too altered to tell it without breaking into laughter every few sentences at the scared look on her face.

"And so he turned back, and he was the last to see the rest of them alive. A few weeks later, they go searching. First they find the deserted tent, torn open from the inside. About a hundred feet away, they find..."

I look up from the flames. Bug eyed stare. She's whimpering. I crack up.

But all in all a damn relaxing weekend, even if I had to occasionally move a boat or chairs or pack sheets, I got paid in beer and by sleeping in a bonafide cabin.

Leaving Blackout Bar. It's too loud now, the outside deck is shut, the masses have come back inside, and I'm glaring at my attorney at least a little over his denunciation of the Clash. Joe Strummer Clash at least. He's a Mick fan, all about the pop songs, not so much with the social conscience anthems. Don't seem genuine to him, he says. As I'm in a Clash t-shirt and have ensured for legal purposes that he knows I'm supposed to have Strummer's "Silver and Gold" at my funeral, I'm not in agreement.

But where to go now?

"Tommy's?" I venture, and get myself the closing argument of my life.

The following is a paraphrase of my attorney's argument. I agree firmly with his points and conclusions.

"Tommy's is a commitment.
Well, you go in, do your opening beer and a shot. Then it's over to a jukebox with the rest of that opening beer. You can put on one or two songs for a dollar. But for a slight price bump, you can get about 7 songs. To give yourself a bumper between the Audioslave or Journey or Nugent you hear now and the more that will be on later, you just gotta go with 7 if you got that many singles.

But oh no, there are more songs than you'd think on the jukebox in front of yours, and now your beer is gone, time for another.

Then a few songs later, your songs have come on, that first one, the one that'd leapt out at you comes blasting over the speakers. You whoop and take a healthy gulp, and all of a sudden, your beer's a little light. Time for another.

A few key songs later and you stumble into number six, that sad one that you wanted to hear in the first place. Which makes you have to have a shot to Townes or to Elliott or to whatever sad sack you put on, and you get a beer with it for a bargain. Then number seven is a rager, that you were planning to walk out on but then you're sitting there, and you still have 80% of your beer left. And you realize the song is almost over and you have beer left, and if you don't put something on, you'll be left with sports bloopers on the tube."

Midway to Franklin, I pull on his sleeve and go "Dammit, we have to go there don't we?"
"YES!"

We blather on about the virtues of Tommy's Tavern, about how good it feels to fit in at an authentic dive bar. None of this faux hipster dive nonsense, but a real honest to god working class bar. About the chaos and the horror and the unpredictability, and then we are on that corner, I can taste the Schlitz. I offer to buy the first round, because I've gone and got myself thirsty again.

But we peer in. Three people including the bartender. Some fishing show on the TV. Otherwise empty. Best not inflict our expectations on the bar of people looking for a quiet drink and to see someone land a bass.

We go our separate ways, having had a good night, but not having to expect a hangover.

Thirsty Tuesday.

70s September Round Up

Scanners

Man, David Cronenburg is a weird damn guy. It's strange seeing this take on psychic powers after being raised on the idea with X-Men cartoons. Instead of it being some tolerance allegory, it's just this movie drenched in paranoia and isolation and conspiracy.

Plus after that great opening display, I kept expecting the effect to repeat itself later in the movie which made me wince and go "Oh god no!" every time things got too intense and people started spasming. Also one of the greater villain introductions I've seen.

Patrick McGoohan? Even a badass as an old man. He acts circles around anyone else in the movie and I still can't shake the feeling that he had the special ops experience to out mind-game and wrestle anyone in his general vicinity.

Vanishing Point
Sometimes watching a movie, you can tell the director is absolutely in love with someone in their movie, be it the lead actress, a city, or a political ideal. In Vanishing Point, Richard C Sarafian is no-holds barred, head over feet in love with the 1970 Dodge Challenger and the way it can rip across the beautiful vast American Southwest.
Yes, this is a love story, and I ain't talking about the flashbacks that Kowalski has about his lost girlfriend. It's about having a great car you know how to drive and amazing scenery to drive through. And not letting the stinking MAN get in your way. The definition of journey over destination. Why does he need to get to San Francisco at 3 pm tomorrow? Who knows? Who cares?
Next month, I might get a chance to stop off at the abandoned town that they used for the radio DJ set. Here's hoping!

The Fury
Kind of a companion piece to Scanners in a way, but with a whole lot less batshit awesome. It tries to be more human, less alienating, but it kinda peters out towards the end.

But it's hard to top a foggy junkyard chase in 70s cars where a disguised Kirk Douglas is bossing around some brainless cops.

"If you see Childress, ask him about his arm."
"What about his arm?"
Kirk snarls "I killled it." and jets off in the car into the lake.

I was lead to believe there would be way more one-armed John Cassavetes. And that would have made things about a million times better because he's just pure hatred. I love it, he fits it so well. He used to be this sensually-faced movie star and age and hard living just cracked his face into a million lines of menace and hate. He walks around with his one arm in a fancy silk scarf, with a black leather glove and it seems conceivable at all times that he could just decide to have everyone in the room with him offed because they offend him with their total uselessness.

But he isn't in it nearly enough, and it descends into this "righteous father fighting to get back his son" thing with some weird "destiny that we should meet" type psychic girl thing that isn't quite as interesting.

Hell of an ending though. Dark. Almost makes the rest of it worth it.