Andy Seven's Blog, page 13

The Psychotic Films of Elizabeth Taylor

The biggest obsession I’ve had this year is checking out every wacked out Elizabeth Taylor film ever made, and she never stopped delivering the goods. In fact she may go down in my personal history as the coolest actress of all time.

Say what you will about Liz Taylor as a sex symbol, movie star, etc, no actress of her stature took more risks and gambled more with their career than she did. The list of wild, risky movies she made like Reflections In A Golden Eye, Boom!, Secret Ceremony, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, to name a few are some of the most intense films ever made and she always stood up to the challenge and blew our minds in the process.

Listed below are a small handful of films starring the great Liz Taylor that you may want to add to your must-see list if you haven’t caught them yet:

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols,1966): Taylor teams up with husband Richard Burton in Edward Albee’s play about an angry, unhappy married couple reduced to playing condescending mind games with the new professor (George Segal) and his wife (Sandy Dennis). Each game is more demeaning than the last one, and the energy level is so insanely high you won’t be able to stop watching.

Taylor really chews up the scenery harder than anyone else aboard, which is quite an astonishing feat. I remember people being shocked by the rough language (“Hump The Hostess”) and unglamorous look at the normally glamorous couple when this movie came out. It really rocked the film world at the time.

Reflections In A Golden Eye (John Huston, 1967): Liz plays a Southern belle Marine officer’s wife to Marlon Brando while carrying on an illicit affair with his buddy, Brian Keith. She mocks his impotency by marching around the house stark naked and emphasizing that her beloved horse “is a STALLION”. But is he impotent or just a closet homosexual?

Issues of homosexuality in various guises, whether it be from a fey Filipino houseboy or a G.I. Joe enlisted man riding around in the buff, make this film a bizarre piece of sexual surrealism that has to be seen to be believed.

Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968): Another play filmed with Richard Burton, this time by Tennessee Williams, it’s the story of agoraphobic millionairess Cissy Goforth who has trespassers and the local peasants shot. She lives in decadent splendor and each outfit worn is more Paco Rabanne – Pierre Cardin crazy with each histrionic scene in spite of her stifling allergies. Liz dictates her memoirs over a loudspeaker when she’s not screaming at the hired help.

Finally Dick barges onto her property as sculptor Chris Flanders, clothes in tatters from guard dogs that have attacked him. He’s outfitted in a samurai warrior’s outfit (complete with sword). Noel Coward, an unwelcome guest at Goforth’s home, tells her that Flanders has been nicknamed by friends as “The Angel of Death”. Liz does a lot of cool yelling in this one, but Burton displays enough charm to keep you watching him through the picture. I think Liz takes “Virginia Woolf” but Dick takes this one. P.S. This can be viewed FOR FREE on You Tube.

Secret Ceremony (Joseph Losey, 1968): Another creepy Losey film about a crazy girl played by Mia Farrow attaching herself to a middle-aged prostitute played by Liz. Mia’s just lost her mother, who bears a passing resemblance to Liz, and since Liz recently lost her daughter, who resembles Mia, they engage in some sick role-playing. Liz plays Mommy and Mia plays the daughter, completely cloistered in a stuffy English mansion. Everything’s perversely rosy until “Dad” (Robert Mitchum) shows up to tear up the Mother & Daughter nest.

Mia’s really amped up the nymph factor here (Woody must have seen this and got smitten), but Liz gives an amazing performance as a woman trying to sort out the sanity in an insane family arrangement. Everybody’s on their game here, and this would be great on a double bill with Robert Altman’s “Three Women”.

The Driver’s Seat (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1974): Filmed right after Liz split with Dick for the last time, this might very well be the female equivalent to “Last Tango In Paris”. Based on Muriel Spark’s novel, it’s the story of a plain spinster named Lise (hmmmm….) who gives herself an outrageous makeover. Her hair flying around her head like some modern day Medusa and resplendent with loud, gaudy clothes, Liz once again screams at every woman in her path like a demoness. The men, however, are another story; they’re stared at with an insane predatory hunger that’s hysterical to watch. On the other hand there’s a pretty stark scene where Taylor’s masturbating in bed.

I think Liz is showing us she can get as tough as her colleague Marlon in “Tango”. Lise travels to Italy to find a romantic lover who will kill her after she’s made steamy, passionate love. The guy she ends up with, though, is a whole other story. Legend has it this film was so shattering when screened at the Cannes Film Festival that at the end the audience fell silent, a reaction more extreme than booing or applause. Well done! P.S. This can also be viewed FOR FREE on You Tube.

There were other strange Liz films I never got around to seeing, like X,Y and Zee, and I won’t even mention that bomb she did with Warren Beatty (yes, he tried picking her up during the filming and fell flat on his face). But the bottom line is that few movie stars took as many risks as Elizabeth Taylor and still came out looking absolutely amazing. Watch and believe!

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Stalking For Sale

Email #1 – January 11, 2015

Thank you for purchasing the iPod Touch during out fabulous money saving New Year’s Sale. We hope you enjoy the iPod Touch with its many convenient features at our insanely low prices. If you could take a few minutes out of your time and complete the attached survey so we can find out how we did, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and when purchasing your next music player, video or audio component remember you can get it less from ZapTronics!

Yours truly,

The Gang at ZapTronics

Email #2 – February 8, 2015

Whoops! Looks like somebody forgot to take care of a few minor chores, like walking the dog, washing the dishes, and leaving a survey about their favorite music & movies vendor, ZapTronics! But hey, we’re patient guys and we’ll let it slide this time. Just make sure to fill out our short, handy-dandy survey attached to this email and shoot it back to us as soon as possible. Don’t overdo the compliments, though, our stock girl Marcie blushes easily! Well, gotta get back to unboxing some new iPod product for our big President’s Day sale, the lowest sale on the net and only from ZapTronics!

Yours truly,

The Gang at ZapTronics

Email #3 – March 17, 2015

We miss you! Did we do something wrong? Earlier this year you bought one of our best iPods at our money-saving lowest prices on the internet. Weren’t you pleased with the great iPod Touch you purchased from us? If our product didn’t meet with your expectations please let us know with the consumer survey attached. Help us grow and improve our service to you! Just take a few minutes out of your time and fill it out, and remember, don’t miss our fabulous Easter sale, only at ZapTronics!!!!

Sincerely,

The Gang at ZapTronics

Email #4 – April 3, 2015

After several requests for consumer feedback you have failed to respond. Might we remind you that when you purchase a product you enter an unwritten contract with the vendor to leave them feedback. Failure to do so is a breach of said contract and legal action might be taken, IF we were bad guys, but we’re not. So please reply to our FINAL request for feedback. Your timely response is greatly appreciated. Don’t forget – we got you that nice iPod Touch at super-low prices you can only get at ZapTronics.

Best Regards,

The Management of ZapTronics

P.S. Even Dave Grohl leaves feedback.

Email #5 – April 11, 2015

Take our word for it: Our business depends on your feedback. Without positive feedback we have no reputation, and with no reputation we get less and less customers coming to our fabulous on-line store. Are you trying to put us out of business? Do you want us to file for bankruptcy? Is that what you want? All that was required of you was to leave feedback for that cheap, fucking iPod which you bought WITHOUT PURCHASING A FUCKING WARRANTY, you penny-grinding son of a bitch!!!!! In closing, let us remind you that we have your phone number on file. Fill out the attached feedback and remit as soon as possible or you’ll be hearing from us….A LOT SOONER THAN YOU THINK!

Regards,

The Management of ZapTronics

Email #6 – April 19, 2015

So, you want to play hardball, asshole? Let me remind you that we have our sources of consumer data and saw your name under the topic called “ZAPTRONICS SUCKS!” on Google. Rest assured the message board that published these libelous lies will be taken down within the next twenty-four hours, and we have carefully captured every name that posted on that message board (including YOURS) and will immediately take legal action against all of you for slander, as well as undue hardship, especially in the matter of a female stock clerk who suffered irreparable stress and anxiety, forcing her to leave work early, following the message board posts which were carefully printed and distributed around the warehouse and corporate office, too, you people, all of you are vandals, buying our precious stock and then throwing bricks and lobbing Molotov cocktails at the hard-working retail enterprise called ZapTronics. You and your thug internet cronies will have the devil to pay for your slanderous doings. Mark my words.

Regards,

The Management of ZapTronics

Los Angeles Times – June 1, 2015

Adam Walfish, CEO of failing internet electronics retailer ZapTronics was indicted on several counts of income tax evasion, embezzlement of company funds, sexual harassment of a female stock clerk, as well as attempted identity theft of over 200 credit card numbers held by past customers. He faces a maximum sentence of thirty years in federal state prison if found guilty. Mr. Walfish refused to comment on these charges for this article.

Tailors Beware

When you call for a plumber it's granted that the plumber shows up with his tools. Likewise, when you call a gardener you know they will show up with a lawn mower and other gardening tools. So why would a tailor call for an assistant and have some graduate from fashion school show up with no tools? This is almost as gross as some musician showing up to a gig without a guitar or an amplifier.

So, for the benefit of those aspiring tailor's assistants who want to advance into the fashion industry, here is a crash course on bringing the proper tools to work, also known as bring your shit to work or stay home.

For those who remain unequipped for tailoring jobs I’m going to give you a peek at what I bring to a tailoring job. There are a few things I didn’t include in this shoot, but I’ll mention some of them so you can have a better idea of what’s important to get the job done.

I normally carry my “tools” in a small leather travel bag, but any small bag with lots of small compartments will work. To summarize what’s in the bag, let’s go clockwise on the photograph:

We have a pair of snippers, a pair of fabric scissors (not to be confused with paper scissors, more on that later), sewing pins for basting (hand sewing), tailor’s chalk or waxes (I like waxes, myself), two seam rippers, a metal tape measure (in the fake cassette container), a Sharpee marker, China markers of varying colors (important), a rotary cutter, and a tailor’s measuring tape.

Let’s start from the beginning: Before you draft a customized pattern you’re going to have to measure your client, and that’s where that pretty yellow measuring tape comes in. My tape goes up to 120 inches, which also means it goes up to 10 feet.

Although that seems awfully tall for normal people, you may be called upon to measure furniture for upholstery or measure for curtains. If you’re doing mascot outfits everything is super-sized, so that 10 foot tape will come in handy. You can thank me later.

Once you have your measurements and your patterns are finally drafted, you’re going to need something to trace the pattern with on your fabric. I use China markers or tailor’s chalk or wax. Always trace opposite tones against the fabric, i.e. dark colors on light-colored fabric and light colors against dark-colored fabric.

After you’ve traced everything as close to the pattern line as possible, and stay away from the selvedge aka the gutter line of the material, it’s time to cut, right? This is where the rotary cutter comes in. Some people like to use standard tailor’s scissors and some use the rotary cutter. It doesn’t make a big difference; it’s simply a matter of taste. They’ll both work very well, but bear in mind that rotary cutter blades need to be replaced regularly, so be sure to buy refills when the blade starts getting dull.

In the next picture you’ll see that nice orange snippers, aka snips. This is good for both altering and finishing. When I use this for altering I will snip every fourth stitch from top to bottom. Once I reach the end of the flawed stitch line I pull the whole thread and the whole stitch comes right off in one pull!

Snips are also good for finishing when it’s time to clean all the threads hanging from your piece, and there’ll always be a load of those. Snips can be also be helpful in loosening stuck bobbin thread and other stubborn threads jamming your sewing machine. Yeah, that’ll happen no matter how careful you are.

Your case should have two pair of scissors: Paper scissors for cutting pattern paper and fabric scissors (shown here) for cutting fabric. Cutting too much paper with fabric scissors will dull it, so use the right tool for the right job.

Next we see sewing needles used for basting aka hand sewing. This container has needles of varying sizes with different sized eyes, as well. There’s a tiny hole in the dial-shaped container so move the dial towards the needle you want and let it fall out. I have big hands so I prefer to use a long needle with a big eye, but there’s sizes for everyone.

Then there’s tailor’s wax which comes in different colors. They perform the same function as China markers. Sometimes you can get a much finer line with tailor’s wax so don’t be afraid to try it.

In the bottom photo shown there’s two seam rippers. Always get two because as sturdy as they look I’ve broken quite a few in my time, believe it or not. Seam rippers are essential because when you sew something lame on your machine you’re going to have to rip out the bad stitches before you sew it all over again. A seam ripper is absolutely crucial to ripping out those bad stitches. Most tailors use a razor blade but you have to be really experienced to use it wisely.

A couple of other pieces of equipment that you need (not pictured) are: safety pins for connecting, ball-head pins for pinning down the pattern to your fabric and keeping fabric from dancing around your sewing machine when it’s being sewed.

And speaking of sewing machines, it wouldn’t hurt to get some looping needle threaders . These are small metal loops you stick the sewing machine thread through and then stick into the eye of the sewing machine needle. It makes everything easier.

It’s also nice to have a tomato to stick your basting needles in. They come with a tiny sand-filled strawberry attached that you can stick your needles in when you want to sharpen them. In addition, always carry a small writing pad with a tiny pen for taking notes when going on location and jotting down measurements while the boss is doing all the measuring.

And finally, no matter what, always pack a small bottle of aspirin. You're gonna need it. Happy sewing!

Do Spiders Dream of Electric Flies?

Not so long ago I stood in line at an auditorium waiting for the doors to open for an important meeting. I stood by a rather boring floor-to-ceiling glass window. Then, something caught my eye that completely demolished any semblance of boredom.

A fly positioned itself lazily on a steel beam in front of the window, and as I quickly looked into the window, where perched on the curtain on the other side was a spider. The spider positioned and re-positioned itself to get closer and closer towards the fly lying on the steel beam outside.

I wondered if the spider thought the fly was within reach of trapping and eating? Did the fly not move because it was afraid of the spider on the other side? Were they both aware of the fact that there was a window separating them? Bees have been known to fly around plate glass windows for hours hitting themselves against the plate thinking they can fly out.

The whole rite of eat or be eaten became very perplexing with no answer in sight. There was no outcome to be seen, nor would I even see any attempt made since I was called in for my meeting. In less than five minutes I saw the meaning of life told in front of me: Someone will survive and someone will die and we’ll never know why or when.

Last year I sent a submission to a literary zine I respected. It was based in London. It dealt with mostly LGBT subject matter and clamored something awful for works that were truly OUTRAGEOUS and TRULY ORIGINAL. This is something I used to hear record companies crying for all the time, but once upon hearing my music they’d turn turtle and play dead, so I knew this hustle was horseshit. Nevertheless, I sent them some of my writing.

While I was waiting for my answer from this zine I looked through their stuff and there was a lot of bad lesbian poetry, just awful stuff that sounded like a woman whining to you in a coffee shop about her disloyal girlfriend. There was one thing that was kind of glam rock but was so rife with comic book stereotypes of glam rockers. The writer sounded like he knew nothing about the subject but found cross-dressing titillating.

After sitting around watching my hand grow and reading the zine’s editor tweeting over and over about SEND US YOUR SUBMISSIONS and more claptrap about OUTRAGEOUS and TRULY ORIGINAL I lost it. I tweeted back, “Hey, my story, have you read it? Are you a beggar or a receiver?”

Mister English LGBT Zine probably bristled at my tweet rejoinder because he snarked back, “We are currently swamped with submissions BLAHBLAHBLAH”….Then why keep begging for submissions, matey?

A week later I finally got my response from this character. It went something like this, and I quote:
“We regret to send you the news that your story didn’t make the grade, however out of all the rejected submissions yours had the most potential”.

(Okay, you didn’t care for my story. Life goes on, but then Mister Swamped goes into a critical analysis of why my writing wasn’t good enough for his obscure zine, which was under no circumstances requested).

“Your writing shows a marked lack of subtlety. Your plotting is brash and overly violent. Your dialogue and descriptions are executed with a primitive crudeness which could use some refining”. I don’t recall even encouragement to submit to them again which other publishers routinely throw out as a beau geste.

The arrogance of someone topping the news your work is unacceptable by offering unsolicited criticism in superior tones was enough to piss me off for the better part of a week. Then I read and re-read his remarks until it finally hit me, and then I laughed. And after that I laughed some more.

His remarks flashed back at me in neon letters: “LACK OF SUBTLETY”…”BRASH”…”OVERLY VIOLENT”…”PRIMITIVE”….In other words he said I wrote like a fucking American. Well, that’s how Americans like to write. Jim Thompson. Charles Bukowski. Jack London. William S. Burroughs. America. No apologies intended. And certainly no changes needed either, Mister Obscure Literary Zine. Have fun with your little cottage publication. Your tame glam rock stories don’t even recall my glory days of the Seventies. Do some fucking research. There’s my unsolicited advice to you.

As long as we’re giving advice about writing, here’s mine: writing doesn’t have fuck-all to do with ideas. You can cart around the world’s oldest idea for a story and still make it work. The success of a story is contingent upon two elements: ATTITUDE & APPROACH.

Attitude is your story and how you SEE it; Approach is your story and how you TELL it. Attitude can also be called the POV (Point Of View). A good example would be the writings of Jack London and Jack Kerouac, two writers who wrote about riding the rails, taking on odd jobs and traveling across the United States. The stories aren’t particularly gripping but their attitude is what sells the tale. Both writers have a distinct attitude on the same situation that makes their writing breathe. Their POV aka their eyes see a similar landscape but everything gets processed in their own style.

A cinematic example of that would be The Killers (1946) which is told from the POV of the insurance investigator, and then we see the same story in 1964 as told from the POV of the killers themselves. Our vision of what the writer sees through his eyes is told through their ATTITUDE.

Approach is the way the tale is told. This is a little different from attitude because now we’re reading our story from a different voice. I can write a bank heist novel but because of how I tell it, it won’t read like W.R. Burnett, who writes in a lean, taut style, or like Ken Bruen, who peppers his crime writing with a lot of Irish slang. To put it simply, it’s the singer, not the song.

In other words you could write the world’s oldest shaggy dog story, but if your APPROACH is different then it’ll still read like something new. The telling of a tale is mostly sold on the writer’s reporting of the events, and originality be damned. I’ve read countless books with original concepts that suffered from shitty story-telling. Don’t worry about having original ideas, they don’t mean shit if you can’t tell a story well. So go write your crazy, unoriginal story.

And don’t be afraid to write like an American.

May Day

I'm going to a job interview; no, let me rephrase that, I'm going to an interview at an employment agency that will send me to a place I can work at for a brief assignment. The name of the agency is DeskWorks and they came highly recommended on Yelp, earning their coveted five star rating.

I enter the office wearing a suit and tie, trying hard to make a good impression. I introduce myself as Spencer Smith to the receptionist and sign in at the front desk. I'm told to take a seat and as I do I reach for a magazine to read until my name gets called. Every magazine on the table is People Magazine, US Magazine, or In Touch Magazine.

As I pick up a magazine lamenting the death of Robin Williams I overhear the receptionist and her co-worker debate about who's the sexiest man alive.
'James Franco always looks hot'.
'Oh, he's so five years ago. Channing Tatum's definitely the sexiest man alive'.

The debate continues and intensifies until I finally hear my name called and I meet my work coordinator. He's a neatly dressed African American man in his fifties named Dalton with close-cropped hair and a green tie with a pink shirt. After the usual small talk I pull out my resume for him to review. He likes my job history and all seems well until he notices a black spot.

'Spencer, can I call you Spence? What's this here about your high school graduation year?'
'Is something wrong with it? Should I take it off?'
'Yes, I would definitely recommend it'.
'Do employers look down on high school graduates?'

He scrunches his face, hemming and hawing. 'No, it's not that. It's just that you list 1974 as the year you graduated. If you were eighteen 40 years ago no one will hire you. You're already dating yourself with your resume....Um, yes, you need to take this off. I can't send this out. This would jeopardize your employability'.

Holding my temper, I ask him if there's anything else he sees in my resume.
'Tell me about why you left your last permanent job'.
I coat the truth by telling him that I left my last position because a new manager came in and brought her own staff with her, cutting the rest of us loose.

The truth is that I worked for a mentally unstable single mother who formed an insane crush on me and thought that I would be her man, even though she still called her abusive ex-husband to come over and fix her air conditioning. 'My son still needs his father', she said.

She told me about her son's porn addiction and asked me for advice about what I would do if I was the boy's father. Either I'd change the subject or excuse myself by going to the bathroom. In retaliation, she accused me of looking at her the wrong way or snapping at her so she wrote me up in a disciplinary report. That was the true story but employment agencies don't really want to hear about all that.

I go home and change my resume and send it to Mr. Dalton the way he wants it. I call DeskWorks the next day and Mr. Dalton is too busy to talk to me. I leave a message, then another, and another and Mr. Dalton has no intention of returning my calls. I killed myself by revealing how old I am.

“The application process has several steps. The first step is taking a written test. After you pass the written test, there is a typing, Microsoft Word & Excel test. After you pass that there is an interview with two or more people who place people in “bands”, which are levels of who they think are most competent. Even at this level, you can be eliminated. The entire process takes over a month, maybe two. If you are chosen, you will probably be assigned to scanning paperwork for six months. Once the assignment is over, you have to undergo the application process again in order to be considered for the next clerical assignment”.

****************

I recently switched gyms. I dumped the last one because they kept closing every time I went there. One time someone burned a bag of popcorn in the microwave oven and they turned on the fire alarm, forcing everyone to evacuate the building regardless of whether they had their clothes on or not.

People using the pool had to stand out in the street in their swimming trunks until the imagined fire was contained. There were more strange excuses for kicking people out of the gym until it became impossible to go there on a regular basis.

The new gym I went to was in the gay section of town. The membership was cheaper and there wasn’t a microwave oven in sight. I chose that gym because I knew that the men were serious about keeping fit and exercising. It wouldn’t be just another social club. There weren’t a lot of women there, and the ones that did looked like they stepped out of ads for the LA Weekly – thin, cold, and unfriendly. But there was one who was different.

When I first saw her she was thick and flabby with a henna rinse of hair and horn-rim glasses, but the odd part was that she wore a leopard spotted t-shirt and a man’s old baggy swimming trunks. She wore tons of eye shadow, foundation and lipstick. She looked like a bottom feeder stripper trying to lose weight so she could get a job at a better club.

In spite of feeling uncomfortable working out for the first time, she was pretty focused with her workout. Unlike the others she didn’t have an iPod connected to a pair of ear buds plugged into her skull. I’d glance at her periodically because she distinctly stood out from everyone else. She was someone different. I saw her every week I went to the gym.

A few weeks later I missed my regular night and went on a different night. In spite of the change there she was, the girl working out in the weight room, which she never used before.

Her appearance changed: the glasses were gone, she bought standard workout spandex clothes but the heavy makeup was still there. The workouts did their magic: she looked thinner than she had since the first time I saw her. I glanced at her for a moment, and upon seeing me she looked alarmed, quickly got off her exercise machine, and raced out of the room.

Two weeks later the leopard girl was at the gym, by this point looking virtually unrecognizable. She wore blindingly bright fluorescent workout clothes, styled her hair, her makeup was heavier than ever and all the flab and chunk she had when she walked in with was long, long gone. She went from looking like someone’s mother to looking like someone’s daughter. When she saw me she walked by my exercise machine and made a weak, ineffectual sneer.

When she sat down at her exercise machine, instead of working out like she usually did, she simply sat there, staring straight ahead, just camping on the machine. It was if she was saying, 'I lost the weight. I don’t have to work out so hard anymore'.

Angered by her unwarranted dirty look I walked up to her and said, 'You were a lot nicer when you wore swimming trunks', and walked away before she had a chance to say anything.

I moved into the weight room and without turning around to check I could feel her eyes burning into my back. And that’s the last time I ever saw her again.

She probably got a job at a better strip club.

*******************

I show my new resume to an agency called Clerk Army and they send me out to a job with a pay rate closely approaching minimum wage. The job involves typing up letters to the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

My supervisor is a woman who looks like a young Elizabeth Taylor from 'Suddenly Last Summer' and whose husband also works in the building. He checks up on her several times a day. Perhaps it's because she only hires men to work under her and she wears her clothes so tight they look like they're going to burst from her body. Every curve and highlight of her body gets equal stage time when she reports to work.

In the beginning I create reports and attend important meetings and am treated like a valued employee, pygmy-sized pay and all. My desk is situated in the front of the office. Everyone sees me as they walk by the front door. I enjoy the attention and the responsibility. It makes me feel needed. Everybody tells me I’m a real life saver.

Two months later the secretary who’s been out on physical disability leave returns and I have my job duties taken away from me. I’m reduced to picking up her mail and running downstairs to set up tables and chairs in the meeting room. I also have to unpack and set up twenty laptops every other day. I’ve also been moved to the very back of the office in a small corner, out of plain sight from everyone.

After three months of running around the building and doing nothing else, my supervisor senses my boredom and calls me in to her office. Wearing a tight sweater with a plunging neckline and even tighter pants, she lets me know that my assignment is winding down.

'Spencer, we really value your work here. Would you be interested in having your assignment extended by another six months?'
'Well, um…'
'I know you’ve been thinking about returning to full-time employment. I can advocate for you to return to full-time if you agree to a six-month extension'.

I can tell she’s working me, and I can’t remember being worked this hard since 1974 when a girl at Rodney’s English Disco badgered me into taking her to the Rainbow Bar & Grill and then ditching me once I snuck her in.

I tell my boss that I’m not interested. She responds by not talking to me for the next two weeks until my assignment is over. I’m actually pretty relieved I don’t have to deal with Young Elizabeth Taylor anymore.

When I drive home I think about the next assignment and how I have to work for more money. The phone company wants to disconnect my line. I finally get a call from Mr. Dalton at DeskWorks. I let the voice mail on my dying cell phone take the call. Let him leave a message for a change.

He wants me to guard a jewelry store in Beverly Hills for one night. A wine tasting party in the middle of Beverly Hills need temps to guard the stores so the drunken rich people don’t go berserk and loot the local merchants.

I decide not to call him back. An old man needs his rest.

Now Playing ABSOLUTELY FREE on You Tube - European Girls Edition

You Tube is better than ever. They’ve opened up the floodgates with posting full-length films in order to compete with Netflix and other assorted cinema providers, and needless to say, everybody wins. This month I’m going to review a few foreign films with strong female performances I wholeheartedly recommend. Most of these films are already legendary in foreign film circles, so if you’re well-versed in new wave cinema you’ll already know about these great films. These films are all currently available for your entertainment on You Tube.

1. Les Bonnes Femmes (The Good Time Girls): This is one of Claude Chabrol’s earliest efforts (his fourth) and considered by many to be the beginning of his sinister yet understated style. He films must be the quietest murder mysteries I’ve ever seen. They are so unassuming that when a murder eventually occurs it’s genuinely shocking.

Les Bonnes Femmes is the story of four shopgirls who dream aloud of men, money and freedom, not necessarily in that order. Bernadette Lafont heads the cast as a wayward party girl who continuously makes bad choices in men, but that’s the point of the film. The women fantasize about the perfect romance but the men they choose are arrogant control freaks.

The climax of the film is pretty powerful, making you wonder what you just watched to the point of wanting to see the film all over again in a different light. And Lafont towers over all the other girls, no small feat.

2. Les Novices (1970): Bizarre psychedelic romp featuring Brigitte Bardot as a bored nun escaping the order to run wild through the streets of Paris. She’s taken in by a worldly wise prostitute played by Annie Giradot.

The irony is that the prostitute exhibits more compassion and intelligence than the runaway nun, but maybe we shouldn’t read too much into this. It’s supposed to be a sort of Odd Couple-style buddy comedy with French ladies running through the streets of Paris. It’s all good fun, anyway, and BB looks amazing. One of her last good movies, maybe THE last.

3. Sweet Ecstasy (1962): This one has long made the rounds on cheap, low-budget public domain video companies, but the You Tube version is the best with a clean, beautiful letterboxed transfer. This French film is a pretty good juvenile delinquent movie about a bunch of reckless thrill seekers featuring a young, hair hopping Elke Sommer.

Elke’s boyfriend Maddy talks her into flirting with a shy rich nerd named Olivier in the hopes they can mess with him. In between picking on this poor dude there’s tons of le jazz hot, Elke striptease dancing, et al, topped with an amazing final scene where Elke the babe’s bound in bondage aboard a burning boat. Try saying that fast ten times. Two years later Sommer became a huge international star from the Peter Sellers comedy A Shot In The Dark.

4. Il Demonio akaThe Demon (1963): There has never been a film quite like Il Demonio (The Demon). Dalia Lavi gives a performance most performance artists would give their first born for. She plays Purificazione, a misfit from a chaste ultra-Catholic village in the Italian countryside. Unlike the other women she’s unruly and perpetually in a state of ardor, making the religious locals believe she’s possessed by the devil. The sad truth, of course, is that she’s madly in love with the utterly gross Antonio, who thinks she’s trash.

Lavi spits and screams and writhes around like a wild animal in heat, but raises the horror movie bar with her upside-down spider walk (pre-dating Iggy by about ten years!), which has to be seen to be believed. This movie and the Mario Bava classic The Whip And The Body are probably her two best films before she transitioned to spy movie fame (Casino Royale, The Silencers, etc.).

5. L’Enfer (1994): Yeah, everything goes back to Chabrol. This latter day work by the master doesn’t disappoint. It’s the story of Paul, a struggling hotel resort manager played by Francois Cluzet, rapidly burning out to the degree that he sees his wife (Emmanuelle Beart) cheating on him every time he turns his back.

Paul imagines best friends and hotel residents all having a go at his wife, manically fantasizing about her infidelities. He spies on her continuously, stalking her more like a sex-starved stranger than a husband. The pinnacle of his insanity is his jealousy over his wife doting on their four-year-old son. Paul is the jealous husband from Hell!

L’Enfer, aka Inferno is one of the cinema’s great unfinished projects, originally filmed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique) in 1964 and starring Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani. A documentary about the original film is available on You Tube (in Spanish subtitles) and it’s a knockout!

The documentary includes footage from the film as well as test shots which freely experimented with the use of color, lights and sound. Some of these test shots, when used, were highly innovative and reminded me of the films of Kenneth Anger and the Hans Richter film Dreams Money Can Buy (also available on You Tube).

Cinematographers and sound engineers discuss the making of the film and the various difficulties the film suffered – budget shortages, the leading man falling ill, dropping out and Clouzot’s own failing health. Truly a great documentary about a film that would have raised the stakes of the cinema and revived Mr. Clouzot’s career.

So, that’s it for now. Five and a half films from Europe, all showcasing some of the strongest female performances I’ve ever seen and most of them date over fifty years ago. Catch all these films when you can. They’re absolutely free and available on You Tube.

Auld Lang Syne

It's often been said and if it hasn't I'll say it, anyway: New Year's Eve is the holiday you spend with the family you want as an antidote for Christmas, the holiday you spent with the family you didn't really want. Nobody knew that more than Chad Featherstone, former guitarist for the once up and coming band Black Mask. It being New Year's Eve, he threw his annual soiree at his live-in rehearsal studio.

The rehearsal studio had only two rooms: a large room taking in two-thirds of the space where bands could come in and rehearse and record themselves; and a small room in the back Chad slept in with a desk, a tiny kitchenette and an almost tinier bathroom. Chad laid out his drinks and snacks in the kitchenette area and threw everyone's coats on his bed. There were almost as many people hanging out in his crash pad than there were in the rehearsal room.

"Let's get this party started! Yaaaasss!" Chad hooted as he put an old, scratchy album on the turntable and cranked the volume so the music would engulf the studio, booming out of the studio's PA speakers. You could hear the needle loudly hitting the surface of the vinyl and the sound of scratches and pops amplifying all through the studio, and then the music would begin.

Chad's friends were by and large former members of Black Mask and the other bands that used to play shows with them ten years ago. All of the other former band members minus one were there partaking of the cheap wine and cheaper snacks - pretzels, chips and packaged vegetable tots with an assortment of flavorless creamy dips.

"KEEP ON DANCIN'!" Chad commanded, dancing with two girls half his age across the room. Hopes to engage in conversation with Chad were wasted because he tried too hard to dance with any girl he could get his hands on. That left the former members of Black Mask to hang around and talk amongst themselves.

Fred the drummer was jamming his face with creamy dip dripping off his ridged potato chips.
"Great party, huh?" he asked Sam the bassist's girlfriend, a skinny, shrill blonde girl.
"Oh, it's okay, I guess", she had a relaxed bitch face. "But why all the scratchy vinyl? Doesn't he own any CD's? It's a little weird, you know".
"Oh, you're gonna be like that, huh? Later", Fred jammed some more chips in his maw and washed it all down with a foamy wash of beer.

Other groups were milling around jamming beer bottles and wine glasses in their faces. Members of the Fifty Pound Gorillas were walking around in their leather jackets and mullets, hitting on girls regardless of whether they brought their boyfriends to the party or not.

Googie from the Gorillas yelled at Chad. "Chad! Dude! Are we gonna jam soon or what?"
"Yeah!!!! KEEP ON DANCIN'!" Chad quipped, bopping around to a moldy James Brown album.

Teddy, the other guitarist in Black Mask stood around staring at a series of blown-up, fuzzy Polaroids pinned up all over the walls of the studio. The pictures were hard to see because the lights in the studio were almost dimmed to the point of complete darkness.
"What are these things?" Teddy asked Fred, who had to pull out a beer from his mouth long enough to respond.
"Um, I guess these are pictures taken by Chad that he's putting on exhibit tonight!" he yelled over The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now".

"Far out!" Teddy yelled back, noticing that they were fairly bland snapshots of a red 1996 Ford Taurus parked in a field. Another picture showed a child's toy drum in an alley way. Teddy looked farther down the room towards the doorway where he saw a pile of color xeroxes of the pictures on display. There was a crude sign scrawled on colored paper which said, "TAKE ONE!!! SIGNED BY THE ARTIST!!!"

"CHAD!!! Is Sally coming tonight? That would be awesome!!!" someone yelled.
"SALLY! SHE'S TOTALLY COMING CAUSE TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT FO' SHO!!!" Chad madly danced to a new girl because the other two went off into the other room to get drinks.

Sally Baxter was the sexy lead singer of Black Mask who struck it rich with a new band she tactfully called Black Mask after she signed with Columbia Records. They signed her under the proviso that she dump the guys in her band, which she promptly did. They were replaced by a new Black Mask that sounded like a Holiday Inn lounge band, more new wave and less hard rock.

Nevertheless, when she wasn't on tour she still paid occasional visits to Chad's parties for some cheap wine and rock & roll slumming. And why not? Back in the day, Sally and Chad were the rock & roll couple, ready for marriage until Chad abruptly broke it off.

"God, I hope Sally comes by. She's so cool!" Sam gushed on hearing the news, which was received by a hard elbow in his ribs by his skinny, shrill girlfriend.
"KEEP ON DANCIN'!" Chad commanded, bobbing and weaving his head of blonde quiffle up and down like a mad boxer shadow boxing. Holding a wine glass in his hand, having it slosh around and barely spilling it over some girl. An old scratchy Blondie record piped up, sounding more tired than a record ought to sound.

The back door opened in the other room and Sally Baxter walked in wearing a vintage green velvet car coat with a cigarette dangling from her lips, holding a guitar case.
"Where's the jam session?" Sally Baxter demanded. Everyone's head craned towards her.
"SALLY!" Everybody yelled. People rushed her to hug her and kiss her all over.

Sally kissed everyone back except for Teddy and Sam and Fred's girlfriends, whom she assessed with a territorial sneer that only Sally could muster.
"You'd be better be cool to my boys or you'll be cruising for a bruising!" Sally wagged her finger angrily at them.
The guys all chuckled. "OH, SALLY! YOU'RE SO COOL!"

Since Sally was good and ready to jam someone killed the record player, draping the once noisy room to silence and prompting her ex-beau Chad to race in and demand what the fuck.
"HEY! KEEP ON-SAALLLLLYYYYY!" Chad roared happily. The once romantic couple hugged warmly.
Everybody laughed. Except for Sam and Fred and Teddy's girlfriends.

"So, all my boys are here. Um, wait a minute, somebody's missing, where's Mickey?" she furrowed her brow and tossed back her brown perm fetchingly.
"Well, uh, Sally, I invited him but you know him, he's a fucked up violent drunk and stuff. The last time he came here he threw up in the alley and the neighbors complained".
"Yeah, he's too crazy. He once threw up in my purse and when I went to the bank to deposit my check it was dripping with his sick".

"Fuck Mickey Katz!" Teddy howled. "He drinks too much and he used to ask for all kinds of free shit, remember?"
"Yeah, he's a sick dude", Chad sniffed, suddenly pensive and thoughtful. "Not held enough when he was a child or something".
"Is he coming or not?" Sally asked.

"He's probably outside rummaging through the garbage can. he probably lives there now!" Chad joked.
"Oh, you stop it, Chad. Just because he's homeless-"
"-More like hopeless!" Fred joked, dipping more chips, switching to Funyuns into a bean dip.
"He stayed at all our houses. He's just permanently homeless", Chad showed his tough love side.

"Remember how crazy he'd get when we'd play?" Fred chuckled wildly. "He used to bang his head against the monitors like a maniac! The bouncers would always throw him out and then ask him if he was with us, and-"
"-and we's say, 'No, Sir!' Hahahaha!" Sam finished for him.

"He always drank more than the rest of us and pick fights with everybody", Chad sighed heavily. "And then he'd always claim he was going to be this big rock star. Typical drunk guy talk!"
"Well, we had to listen to his fuckin' talk because he always carried our shit into the clubs and play bodyguard", Sally added.
"That was his choice, not ours!"

"Then there was the time he tried to kill himself and the Doctor at the Intensive Care Ward called you for permission to have him committed?"
Sally shuddered. "How could I forget? I need a glass of wine!"

"Mickey's just a loser, I guess", Sally shrugged her shoulders like an impish little girl. "Hey! Do any of you sailors have a ciggie banging around?"
"SURE, SALLY!" roared all the boys, reaching for their packs of smokes and anxiously groping for their lighters.

"Okay, you guys!" Chad clapped his hands. "Before we have our jam session I want to show this animated video I worked on about Elvis Presley's pet mosquito, it's really funny as shit, and by the way, I'm giving out free Polaroid prints by the door. Let the party rave on!"

*******************

Mickey Katz lay in his bed in his large apartment sipping on a shot glass of Goldschlager. He turned and smiled at his wife of twenty-two years. She was an ex-punk rocker like him. They still looked like a pair of old wolves, slim and with shaggy heads of hair.
"Happy New Year, baby", he said, kissing her lightly.
"Happy New Year, hon", she returned and sipped her Goldschlager.

"Oh fuck, they had me work until 5 PM today. They said that New Years Eve isn't really a holiday so I had to put in a full day today", he griped.
"Fuck those assholes. Well, we can sleep in tomorrow", his wife smiled and looked tired, too.

"Are you going to fall asleep already? We just got into bed and everything".
"The booze is so good, I'm gonna conk out".
Mickey grabbed the remote control to the TV set and turned on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. They both laughed at how stupid Dick Clark looked. Dick Clark spoke to the camera as if everyone watching was an 85-year old man from Krakow, Poland.

"What's he saying?" Mickey asked. He was clinically deaf. "Shit, I gotta turn on the Closed Captioning so I can read what that douchebag's talking about".
"I think he's introducing John Travolta. No, Air Supply. Dick Clark's getting worked up over Air Supply".
"He's such a whore", he chuckled. "Hey! Tomorrow after we sew up your dress let's go out to dinner so we can get out of the house for a change. I'll take you to that weird place down the street. Sound cool?"

Mickey's wife didn't answer because she was already fast asleep. Mickey laid back on his pillow and started drifting off himself. That one shot of Schlager and the inane captions on the television wore him out. Mickey finally gave up, drifting off into a deep sleep, should old acquaintance be forgot.

Blood On The Saddle Bag

Howdy, Saddle Pals, it’s that time again, I see that Pony Express rider slowly trudging into town carrying a heavy loaded sack of fan mail from all you boys and girls. Mr. Pony Express Man says, “Next time get a stage coach or a train to carry all that mail, Walker. You’re killing me and my horse with all them messages!”

Ha,ha,ha…Thank you, boys and girls, for all your cards and letters, all sent to yours truly, Crash Walker c/o Wranglers’ Canyon, brought to you by the good folks at Bosco, the United California Bank, and the kind folks at Honeywell. Let’s dive in to some of these letters now and see what’s shaking!

Tito Polanco from far-off Honduras says, “Dear Crash, I like the way you shoot your gun. How many bullets does your gun carry? Can you kill at the least ten bad men with your gun? Mumblin’ Pete always makes me laugh. It is good he can kill. Please excuse my bad English”. No problemo, Tito.

Darrell Duares from Detroit, Michigan writes in and says, “You should have Sailor Jerry get into some bad shoot-em-ups, his hook holding a Colt .45, yeah that would be bad”. It sure would, Darrell!

By the way, kids, don’t forget to ask your Mom and Dad to buy you the Crash Walker repeat action rifle from Remco, it is the authentic replica of the one I use on my show. All you need to do is add your Greene Stick-Em Caps to get your barrel smoking and you’re all set! You can shoot bad men along with me while you’re watching the show, Tito.

Three cheers to the Osaka, Japan chapter of the Crash Walker Official Fan Club. Moshi moshi, boys. Lookin’ real sharp in those ten gallon hats and six guns. You’ll be ropin’ steers in no time, just like your hero Crash. Sayonara!

EXTRA! EXTRA! Got a few requests for pen pals in Yugoslavia, Cypress and Finland who want to chew the fat on all things Wranglers’ Canyon. Anybody game?

Suzy Whitechapel, 16, from Cardiff, Wales wants to know when is Crash Walker going to fall in love and will she be a hard-ridin’ cowgirl? Well, honey, I don’t rightly know, there sure are a lot of fetchin’ fillies who tried to put the reins on me, with very little success, heh heh. All I’ve got to say, Suzy is keep watching Wranglers’ Canyon and drinking your Bosco or whatever you kids in Wales drink.

Rolf Heine from Hamburg, Germany writes, "Saying what is Mumblin' Pete? Understand what he says, do you? My bad English you will excuse". Welllll, to tell you the truth I don't rightly know what Mumblin' Pete's saying, Rolf, but it sure do makes sense at the time. By the way, Rolf, is Hamburg next to Frankfurt? Your parts sounds like you German folks got some mighty good eats!

Well, that’s about all the time I have to get to your questions and requests. It sure was nice of you all to write to your old frontier pal Crash. Now don’t forget to do your homework, do your chores, be nice to your brothers and sisters, go to church on Sundays, drink your Bosco and watch Wranglers’ Canyon every Friday evening, 9 PM Pacific Standard Time and 10 PM Central Time, and may The Good Lord take a liking to you!

The Island of Misfit Bands

Being in a band, in gambling terms, is never a sure thing, and make no mistake, a band is a gamble from start to finish. The odds on a band’s success rise higher and higher every day, especially since rock music’s lost its ability to command the marketplace.

Endless investments like musical equipment, rehearsal studio rent, demo recording costs and so much more bring back virtually no dividends at all. It’s a wonder bands stay together for as long as they do. This blog pays tribute to those bands that only hung in there for an album or two but still had so much to say.

A band can’t be judged on its staying power. Some bands release one album after another with the same songs like a sausage factory. There are other bands that put out one masterful album and then all the others thereafter are weaker than shit. It’s like the man says, you have your whole life to write the first album and only six months to write the second one.

I’ve compiled a list of my favorite two album wonders of the past twenty years, and here’s a brief sampler of them:

1. Darker My Love – a pretty good modern freakbeat band out of Silverlake, California. Songs like Talking Words, Summer is Here, and Northern Soul have a dark, reverb drenched sound with great melodies and cool vocals. On their website they sort of allude towards a “Maybe we’ll play again, maybe we won’t”. Maybe they should.

2. The Quotes – In an earlier era these boys would have been called power pop but with guitars and singing as ferocious as this (shades of The Reigning Sound) it’s just great, noisy rock ‘n roll. Hailing from Rotterdam, Holland, their songs like “Mass Produced” and “Lipstick” will blow the roof off your house and they even kick out a great cover of The Cynic’s “Help You Ann”.

3. Volt – Brought to you by In The Red Records, their press release claims they’re from France but the female singer sings in German with great songs like “Alles Neu” and “Testbild”. Imagine a cross between Kraftwerk and Boss Hog, with a synthesizer fighting a slide guitar for dominance in the noisy, distorted mix. Scores extra points for covering The Tyrades’ “Couples”.

4. The Hex Dispensers – To date they’ve only released two full-length albums and I wish there was more. A classic punk band with a Joey Ramone sound-a-like and melodies to kill for like “Channel 13 Is Haunted” and “O.B.I.T.” There’s also a great punk cover of Gary Numan’s “Down in the Park”. More!

5. The Brides – If The Misfits were more glam than punk they’d sound a lot like this Brooklyn, NY band. With a keyboardist named Julia Ghoulia, they sport some great songs like “Noir Aware” and “Got It” with Ghoulia’s sharp gothy organ screeches. Check out their great album “Sofa City Sweetheart” on eMusic.

6. Post Junk Trio – If Morphine turned into an instrumental band following the untimely death of Mark Sandman it would sound exactly like this. In fact, you could file this next to any Morphine album and fool your friends. Their album “Chinatown” is outstanding with tracks like “The Dog’s For Sale” and “Fun”. Love that honking baritone sax. More!

7. Tipsy – weird electronic lounge music from San Francisco, their two albums are essential listening even if you don’t care for lounge. Their sonic dreamscapes are total ear candy, especially the “Trip Tease” album. They also have some heavy hitters guest star on their records, like Ralph Carney on reeds and Vince Welnick from The Tubes on keyboards. I also saw a theremin and sitar credit on their albums. Well done!

Other two-album bands I like but didn’t get much information on were The SG Sound, another wild lounge band with some great tracks like “Jump The Shark” and “Sirens of Venus”, and Penthouse from Ireland who sound like some crazed cross between Jesus Lizard and The Birthday Party. Then there’s also Elevator Drops from San Diego on Time Bomb Records and a few others I can’t even remember any more.

In closing I just want to say that taking a chance on a short-lived obscure band can be more rewarding than listening to yet another wheeze from a band that’s been around too long. I won’t mention names, but the shorter lived bands sometimes have more to offer than the stodgy old ones.

The Andy Seven Update

Now would be a good time to take a break in plugging men’s fragrances and free downloads on You Tube to let you know what's been going on lately. I'll start by letting you know that my latest novel Every Bitch For Himself has a new, revised cover (seen above) as well as a rear cover that's pretty awesome to look at, too. Both feature illustrations by the great Rebecca Seven.

Every Bitch For Himself still retails at $4.99, which is still a great deal compared to the overpriced paperbound books glutting the shelves at Barnes & Noble. Plus the book totally shreds, as Gore Vidal would say.

In addition to the Andy Seven page I created on Amazon.com I've also created a Cockfight page in honor of my band that played from 1993-1999. The page contains some cool photos of us as well as a few mp3 tracks for you to listen to.

Cockfight was a great band that played lo-fi punk with some brain shredding guitar sonics and played clubs like The Coconut Teaszer, The Abbey, The Garage, Club Lingerie, and Raji's, to name a few. You can find the page here: http://www.amazon.com/Cockfight/e/B001LI969G/ref=ac_dtp_sa_link.

I've also begun uploading full length films on You Tube which you may enjoy. I've kept the film selections pretty varied, running the gamut from modern rock films like The Year of My Japanese Cousin starring Selene Vigil of 7 Year Bitch to a 1941 Shemp Howard solo comedy Ghost Crazy to noir classics Naked Alibi and Desert Fury. All movies are unavailable for sale on DVD so there's no bootlegging involved. You can find my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChunkyBoots/videos.

Wranglers' Canyon is almost complete and should be finished by April with a July release date. I promise a pretty big surprise with this edition - it will be a lot different than anything I've done before. Like the two other novels it will be an eBook via BookBaby.

Unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time designing clothes for myself lately but I plan on remedying that soon. I have a few designs up my sleeve that I'll be working on soon. Pics will be posted up as soon as they're all stitched up. All I'm going to say is I hope you like leather.