Movies Alone

I write a column every week for mtv.com about movies and it can sometimes be tricky. I’m lucky in that my editors have given me a pretty free reign on what I can write about, but I need to keep in mind that a big chunk of the audience is, well, people who watch MTV. Most weeks I tend to take on the role of Professor Rewind, trying to teach the kids a thing or two about the history of film, or get them to broaden their horizons or thinking a wee bit. Occasionally I’ll pander to the crowd, tossing in a list of movies about losing your virginity, but more likely I’ll tell them why my pop culture is better than theirs (something some would claim I've been doing for decades).

This week I’m working on an overview of the films written, directed by and starring Albert Brooks. And it’s been a real test of my “Don’t Spend Money” resolution because as I’ve been writing, I’ve had a big ol’ hankering to own Modern Romance, Real Life and Lost in America. Two things are holding me back, though: Not all of Brooks’ films are out on DVD and those that are are (1) too expensive and (2) really lacking in bonus materials, especially for the price. Modern Romance is coming out soon and it’s happily a cheap price, so I’ll eventually get that (it’s my favorite Brooks film anyway). But Geez Louise, doesn’t it seem as if most of Brooks’ oeuvre is ripe for the Criterion treatment?

Speaking of movies, I realize I’m late to the table here, but I saw Million Dollar Baby on HBO last weekend and HOLY SHIT.... That.... movie..... SUCKS. Bowing the eternal reign of subjectivity, I still think that it’s just a flat out BAD MOVIE.... awful cartoony characters, ridiculously huge plot holes, a clichéd, predictable story... I honestly do not understand the heaps of praise this movie earned. My biggest (of many) complaints? That not ONE PERSON ever told Maggie (the so overrated Hilary Swank) what “Mo Chuisle” (the Gaelic term on the back of the robe given her by her beloved trainer / manager / surrogate whatever Frankie [Clint Eastwood]) meant? It seems minor, but it’s such a huge part of the plot that it’s just too much to buy that she remained ignorant of its meaning until Frankie tells her right before he pulls the plug on her (and calmly walks out of the facility). Yeesh.

This week I went to see two movies alone. I never used to do that when I was younger. But these days, Movies Alone feels like the wave of the future. Or the name of a Blog. Hey, how about just the heading of this entry.

Happy Lungs

So, the big conversation at the bar last week was the signing of the Smoking Ban in New Jersey. By mid-April, cigarette smoking will be a thing of the past in New Jersey bars and restaurants, just as it’s been in New York (and 9 other states) for the past few years. Since the New York smoking ban, the ability to light up in Jersey has been if not exactly a draw, certainly a happy perk for many hipsters travelling from NYC to Hoboken to see a show at the club where I sling.

My bosses aren’t thrilled about the ban for a number of reasons: They don’t appreciate being told what to do in their place of business, they’re concerned about loss of revenue and mostly, about what the neighbors are going to think of the smokers who will now congregate outside to light up. They’re also pissed about the corrupt hypocrisy that will leave New Jersey casinos exempt from the ban, but that’s moot to me.

I couldn’t be happier or more excited. If they passed a law mandating dollar-per-drink tipping, I wouldn’t be as thrilled as I am at the prospect of a smokeless place of work. For numerous reasons. First, and most obviously, I can now go home at the end of the night and get right into bed instead of having to take a shower to get the smoke stink off of me. I can breathe easier knowing I won’t be inhaling second hand smoke all night long. Please note this is something I never complained about because, yes, it was my choice to become a bartender and I knew full well what that entailed. But that doesn’t change the fact that despite never having smoked in my life, my lungs probably think I do a pack or three a week.

From the bartender’s perspective, it’s going to make our lives easier (no more dealing with matches, change for the cigarette machine or ashtrays)... and your drinks a lot nicer, too. Lemme ‘splain. Since we’ll no longer have to clean out ashtrays a hundred times a night (including wiping up ash off the bar from smokers who think that the ashtray is a general target area rather than a specific desitination for the residue), the odds that our hands will be sullied with the carcinogenic material becomes nil. So, when we touch the fruit to garnish your cocktail, the only grime will come from the money we’ve been handling (okay, that’s probably worse than ash, but still).

But you know what I’m happiest about? That my friends (co-workers and customers) are going to have to smoke less. Anything that curtails that deadly activity is fine with me. And it’s going to be HILARIOUS watching the kids too young to drink struggle to find some new way to seem older. Maybe the guys will complain about their prostates while the gals debate botox injections...

Childhood Art Found!

So, while home over the weekend for the Tiki-Reception for Ange & Dan (congrats, kids), I was cleaning out the attic and finally found the rest of my old childhood drawings. Three of my faves:

A PICHER
Please note that I no longer have this fashion sense (although there are some who may wish I did). And to the best of my recollection, I did not have sideburns at the age of 6 (I can't even grow them now!).

SUPERMAN PLAYS THE PIANO
One of dozens of Superman drawings found in the lot, this one's my favorite. What possessed me to draw Kal-El tinkling the ivories, I have no idea. Fill in the thought balloon yourself.

??????
Is that a mask? Black eyes? Why is he pointing? And at what? What are those splotches on his shirt? Your guess is as good as mine.

PECULIA and the GROON GROVE VAMPIRES

Richard Sala is a creator of beautifully gothic comics and cartoons (you may remember his “Invisible Hands” cartoon from MTV’s Liquid Television). Often compared with Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, his style is at once charming, eerie and sensual. He’s equally comfortable drawing vampires, ghouls and hunchbacked grotesqueries as he is pretty barefoot girls (heroine Peculia never wears shoes, as with most females in Sala’s work. Whether it’s a metaphor or a fetishistic preference is anyone’s guess). He’s one of a handful of cartoonists whose style seems effortless in its intricacies.

But maybe more importantly, his work is a joy to read. His new graphic novel, Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires (actually the 13th issue of his Fantagraphics comic book, Evil Eye) probably took Sala about five minutes to write, and it’s nothing earth shattering, story-wise. It’s a simple, predictable vampire fairy-tale. You could read the entire thing in about five minutes, but don’t. Take your time, languish in the texture and the mood of the book, feel the slight tinge of guilt over the prurience involving a gaggle of teenage babysitters, taken one by one by the vampire family.

It’s unusual that a creator’s latest work is a good starting point for the uninitiated, but that’s the case here. Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires is the perfect introduction to Sala’s work (and it’s my favorite graphic novel format, the smaller 8 x 6” size). Odds are you won’t stop there.

Can't I Tell Them About the Amazing Thing?

There are a few things that I can count on every December. One of them is that TV meterologists will editorialize cold, wintry weather as being bad. This is a subjective OPINION, not an empirical fact, and I would thank them to keep their summer-lovin’ prejudice to themselves. It’s gonna be cold? Excellent! It’s gonna snow? Hooooray!! As if it’s not bad enough that their predictions are wrong more than half of the time.

Another thing I’ve come to rely on is that my annual Christmas Video Party will yield another tale of humorous debauchery. Last year it was Mike O’s expletive-filled commentary on It’s a Wonderful Life. This year it was Johnny Hanlon’s climbing down the fire escape and over the backyard fence to crash the party my neighbors were throwing. See, we were watching them in the courtyard and marveling at the amazingly hideous holiday sweaters. In this very grainy photo, there’s a triangle of lights in the middle: that’s a light-up tree on a sweater.

The debate raged as to whether there was any irony present, so John, loaded up on sugar and alcohol, took it upon himself to investigate. Turns out, there was a contest for worst Xmas sweater.

Meanwhile, the rest of us feasted and fawned over the deleted “Sheep” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Santa in Animal Land, a Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Guy Under the Seats: Christmas Under the Seats, the Spirit of Christmas, an SCTV Christmas, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Elf. A big whopping load of Holly Jolly.

Despite being a fairly raging Atheist, I do truly love Christmas. Maybe it has to do with my obsession with childish things (which I never put away). Maybe it’s that I’m overly nostalgic (to a fault). Maybe I just really love snow, pretty lights and egg nog (oh, how I do). I tend to extrapolate that whole “good will towards men” bit more than making it a celebration of the birth of ol’ JC. I won’t go so far as to make any comparisons between myself and the Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge, mostly because I haven’t had the epiphany they shared that gave them a selfless love for their fellow man 24/7, 365.... But I do feel different this time of year. As giddy as a drunken man, making a perfect Laocoön of myself.

Merry Christmas. Etc.

Wood Tick Was Crawling...

So, the latest DVD project is Twin Peaks. I have the first season box, but it looks like there’s still a ton of red tape preventing the Pilot and Season 2 from coming anytime soon and since I have them all on VHS, a-dubbing I will go.

Well, almost all of them. I seem to missing one volume, the penultimate episodes leading to the frustrating non-conclusion that left Agent Cooper stranded in the Black Lodge. No matter.... while those episodes are not on DVD, they ARE available on (what I hope will not be copy-protected) VHS, available at used prices through Amazon. Phew.

Yes, I’m going to pay money for videotapes merely to transfer them to DVD-R. I wish I could say it will be the first time, but that honor goes to A Very Brady Christmas (but more on that in a week or so).

There are a number of incredible things about Twin Peaks as I watch it now, 15 years later. One is the gloriously slow pacing of the thing. Prime example: the opening of the second season premiere, with the dottering hotel waiter bringing the warm milk to Agent Cooper, who lies on the floor bleeding from a gunshot wound. The old man says over and over, “I heard about you!” and flashes the “thumbs up” sign, blindingly oblivious to Cooper’s plight. Cooper, ever the zen master, accepts the futility of trying to get the waiter to call for help, signs for the milk (including gratuity) and returns the thumbs up.... the first two times, anyway. Then he shoos the old man away, waiting for the giant to appear and tell him three things.... It’s agonizingly slow, and I mean that in the best way.

Another thing I love is how all those clues... all those tiny bits and pieces that my friends and I obsessed over... the “R” under Laura’s fingernail... Hank’s domino... “The Owls Are Not What They Seem”... they all meant NOTHING. While most fans either refused to accept that fact or became angered at the sloppy bow that suddenly tied up the Laura Palmer murder (no doubt at ABC’s insistence), once I realized that everything David Lynch and Mark Frost concocted was merely to create MOOD, that there was no logical explanation for the horse in the living room or the more mystical elements of the show... it opened my mind about storytelling (much the way Hitchcock’s MacGuffin theory did).

But boy, did my friends and I obsess. My then-girlfriend (now ex-wife) Erin, my brother Ken, my roommate Stacey, our friends Lou, Cindy, Amy and Dave.... we dissected everything from how Harry said “Wait... WHERE?” when hearing of the dead body... wrapped in plastic... instead of asking WHO? to the real reason that Andy cried so much....

We’d have Twin Peaks parties and buy donuts and drink coffee and freak out every time Killer Bob popped up. And all of us, male and female, lusted after those Twin Peaks babes (then and now, to me, Audrey was the hottest). There was so much excitement over that show, who cares if all that speculation turned out to be pointless?

It’s also funny today to see a 15 year old Alicia Witt (with a severe Elmer Fudd speech impediment) as Gersten Haywood and then later, Heather Graham as Annie (where’s ANNIE?!”) and of course David Duchovny as the transvestite DEA agent Dennis / Denise Bryson.

For me, running my little indie record store added to the excitement. I had a close relationship with the Warner Bros. Records alternative marketing dept., and they were doing a ton of promotion for the show, the soundtrack and Julee Cruise’s sister record, Floating Into the Night. I got posters, CDs (including the rare donut-promo of the Twin Peaks soundtrack), a copy of the pilot on VHS, featuring Julee’s video for “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart” and best of all, a signed letter from David Lynch, thanking me (personally!) for listening to Julee’s record. Sure, there were a bunch of them personalized for indie record stores across the land, but that didn’t make it any less cool to me.

On November 11, 1990, the night after it was revealed that Leland killed Laura, nine friends and I saw Julee play the TLA in Philadelphia after an in-store signing at Third Street Jazz (RIP) and the show was red and eerie and perfect.

Twin Peaks was a cult phenomenon that, pre-internet, bound Peaks Geeks together with a red ribbon and a big sheet of plastic. It was pervasive. And so much damn fun.

And I’m sure that as soon as I finish burning those DVDs, they’ll announce the second season box. Darnit.

the Olive Juice Shortage

So, here’s the latest thing that’s annoying bartenders across the land: Dirty Martinis. They seem to be the trendy drink right now, and while they’re certainly less esthetically offensive than an Appletini or a Cosmo, there’s one problem with the Dirty Martini: Unless a bar has an incredibly large inventory of olives, they’re going to run out of the ingredient that makes it dirty: Olive Juice.

Most bars keep garnish trays containing just enough limes, lemons, cherries, olives et al to get them through the shift. And while bars usually buy olives in large bulk jars, there’s still only a finite amount of juice in there. And you have to keep some in the bulk jar to keep the olives fresh. So, for the most part, any bar that you patronize is likely to have enough olive juice to make a mere handful of Dirty Martinis. After that, the olive juice has run out. You can have a dozen olives in your Martini if you want, but you ain’t getting a dirty one after that. But try explaining that to the trendy drinker (oh, and note to Soledad O’Brien: There’s no such thing as “Martini Mix”.... stick to offering opinions on BABIES, since that seems to be the extent of your expertise).

People are utterly predictable at a bar. Bartenders can almost always guess who’s going to order the bad light beer, who the Guinness drinkers are and who’s gonna ask for some double-entendre-named shot that belongs in a house with Greek letters on the outside. Underage kids who attempt to get served almost always show their hand even before they order. First they stand about six feet away from the bar and carefully survey the scene while they try to work up the nerve to ask for their illegal drink. Then they walk to the bar and usually do one of two things: nervoulsy sputter out a too-sweet drink order that screams “I should be drinking milkshakes!” or, much funnier, order with a jaded vocal inflection that intimates that they are just so OVER IT: “Yeah, man, just gimme a beer,” the kid with the sprig of facial hair and the carefully held cigarette will say, not making eye contact with the bartender. He’s so world-weary and casual in a bar that he doesn’t even care about what BRAND of beer he gets. Kiddies, listen up: You’re not fooling anyone.

Now, when you ask the underage kid for ID, they have three options (four if you count offering a fake one): Pretend they didn’t bring or lost it (the usual tack), honestly admit that they’re not old enough (almost never happens), or (my favorite) SHOW the ID that proves they’re NOT old enough to legally drink and then PLEAD THEIR CASE. I’ve had this happen a dozen times. “C’mon man, it’s only a few months!” as if the law is flexible and the bartender’s prerogative. Or, even better, since I work in a rock club, “But I’m in the band!” as if the law is, You Must be 21... or in a Band.

Jesus, as if we don’t have enough crappy bands already!

Oh, and on an unrelated note, another thing to add to the list when I rule the world: The failure to properly cap a felt-tip marker, causing it to prematurely dry out, will be punishable by a hefty fine or imprisonment of up to two months per Sharpie killed. There’s just no excuse.