Read and Burn

Back when I was writing press releases for the University of Florida, I had a professor turn the tables and start asking me questions. He wanted to know what newspaper I read. I told him the St. Pete Times, and I’m sure I had a good rationale because I was in my 20s and had lots of reasons and justifications and speeches for why I liked or disliked things.“That’s a good paper,” he said. “But they go overboard on all that ‘the moon hung lightly in the fog-misted night’ stuff. Sometimes I just want to know who got murdered, you know?”

The professor had a point. I’m not opposed to a little poetry or finesse, but journalism school, years of simple punk rock, and my shattered attention span have me screaming, “Get to the point,” or “take that ‘word symphony’ back to creative writing class,” when an author gets too overblown.Which brings me to Love and Death in the Sunshine State, a book about the disappearance of a motel owner on Anna Maria Island which is about 10 minutes from where I grew up. It's where we went to the beach. My first girlfriend lived there. I was interested to see how it described the place, especially since the book got pretty good reviews.

Man, did that thing make me mad.

Author Cutter Wood hangs out on Anna Maria Island for a week, gets obsessed with the murder/disappearance and halfway attempts to investigate. Actually, his half-assed investigation is my favorite part of the book, where he’ll sleep until 10 or 11, show up to interviews unprepared,  and try to guilt the motel owner into giving him a reduced rate. Hell, I’d totally read a book about a lazy detective. Somebody get on that!

I think I hate Cutter Wood. I want Oprah to make him cry on the TV like she did to that Million Little Pieces fraud. I want him to be forced to grade his dumb students’ short stories for eternity while Jimmy Buffet plays on a loop. I want Donald Trump to be his roommate. I want the stupid typewriter he uses (yes, of course he uses a typewriter and has to mention it) to run out of ribbon right before he types out another overwritten “poetic” description of Florida.

Incidental characters sound like mashups of Tom Waits and Jimmy Buffet songs, and I don’t really think Woods actually talked or listened to them giving their “I’m just a sunburned carney worker propping up the bar here, but let me tell you some hard-earned wisdom about women and life” jazz. I grew up in Florida. I’ve ridden busses. I’ve worked terrible jobs. I’ve heard those guys all my life. They’re not that poetic.

It's also full of mistakes that are easy enough to fix in the age of Google. Mr. Bones is a bbq restaurant, not a bar. I don’t even think they have a bar. Hernando DeSoto died near the Mississippi River, not in Florida. The name of "The Sarasota Paper" is the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Tourist season is generally in the colder months. After mistakes like these, I’m a bit leery that he really saw a cook give himself a blood sugar test in a greasy spoon that smells like nail polish remover because it’s next to a nail salon in a strip mall. I also don’t believe the young woman that takes a birth control pill and a Flintstones vitamin every morning.  Do they even make Flintstones vitamins anymore?

You could say that the true crime book started, or at least turned respectable with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s blending of reporting and novelistic tools to create a work that was able to get into the characters’ thoughts and motivations. You know what Truman Capote didn’t do? Dedicate over half of his book  to chapters about the author falling in love and moving in with his elementary school crush and teaching students he thinks are stupid and attending parties.

He also, from what I remember didn’t cover the thing in the most florid, overwritten prose that I’m not going to give an example of because I’ve already returned the book and trying to remember it angries up my blood. 

Sometimes you just want to know who got murdered, you know?

Reading Rainbow

Were your parents too cheap to buy you a Shogun Warrior when you were a kid? Did they not love you enough to shell out for a complete set of Strawberry Shortcake dolls? You're a grown-up now - head to the flea market or Ebay and fill that nagging hole in your soul! Who's going to stop you? Your spouse or significant other? Your financial planner? Why are they trying to keep you down? Do they hate your happiness and well-being?

As a kid I wanted anything associated with Star Wars, even more so than dinosaurs and Peanuts, my previous obsessions. Put a Star Wars sticker on a comb and I'd start negotiating: "Mom! Dad! You know how much I love combing my hair - please, please, please get this for me. I won't ask for anything else until Christmas, I swear. I'll brush my hair every morning please, please, please!" Then I'd get it, be a styling combed hair little kid for a couple days until I got bored and wanted a Star Wars pencil holder or trash can.

Couple weeks ago I finally recalled the name of a Star Wars book I had as a kid. The way I remembered it, it tied the movie in with its influences in westerns, war movies, and science fiction serials. There was photo of John Wayne from The Searchers, as well as that half guy from Freaks that I'd dare myself to look at. There was a chapter on Universal monsters which I was also getting into at the time. Even though it was a kid's book, it still planted the seed of an idea that a movie (or any artwork, actually) is more than what's on the screen, it's all sorts of previous influences and inspiration and can be a way to understand the bigger culture.

This meant that I was one of the few kids on the playground in Mississippi who was able to say with an affected sigh, "Yeah, Star Wars was OK, but it was better the first time when Kurosawa called it Hidden Fortress."

After finding the generically named The Star Wars Album on Amazon for three bucks (and 25 on Ebay - come on people, knock it off), I found that I was sorta right in my memories. The Star Wars Album is a quickie production with no author listed but manages to be better than it should be. The first twenty pages or so deal with the influences, then about a third of the book is taken up with movie summary, then there's info on the art and models and behind the scenes stuff.

Flipping through it, I remembered how many of the movie photos I tried to draw (and also remembered how I was sort of annoyed the book spelled out names like Artoo Deetoo.). And yeah, the picture from Freaks that fascinated and terrified me was there, ready to terrify me again.

This photo really  messed with me as a kid.

Funny how such an obvious cash-in held such a place in my memory for so long, and I'd suspect began my obsession to research and investigate my media tastes, from finding out all I could about the movies that influenced Star Wars (well, the monster and sci-fi stuff) to poring over Thank You notes on punk albums and noting what shirts my favorite bands wore to find more musical obsessions, the book started me down a collector nerd path of which I've only recently sort of stepped off of.

Years later (or between Star Wars movies) I was became obsessed with the Hardy Boys. I saved all my money to buy as many books as I could. I wanted a brother I could solve crimes with (I had a perfectly fine sister, but detectives seemed to travel in same-sex groups), and if I couldn't have that, at least give me a bumbling fat comic relief character who would blurt out something so stupid yet genius that he would help crack our case.

I had a friend who was equally obsessed, and we'd trade books after school in my mom's classroom, filling in the gaps in our respective collections. He had one book, however, that he would not part with - The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook. I don't blame him at all. Damn, did I want that book. I needed that book. He wasn't using it - he never told me about solving any crimes or tracking clues at all. It just sat in  his stupid house while crime ran rampant in Bradenton.

I did get to borrow it, and committed some of the techniques to memory, which is more than he ever did. In the years since I've forgotten most of it, but I did remember it had a glossary of criminal slang which I hoped I'd overhear some unsavory character use someday so I could tell the cops or my dad or something.

I figured while I was buying ancient Star Wars books, I should probably shell out for the Detective Handbook. Who knows, maybe it had as big an effect on me as The Star Wars Album did. Or maybe I can finally launch that detective agency this city needs, or at least learn some cool old-timey slang.

I had completely forgotten that Detective Handbook opens with a bunch of  chapter-long cases designed to illustrate different aspects of detecting to junior sleuths. Like one chapter would deal with making plaster casts, one would tell you how to dust for fingerprints, that sort of thing. Also, one chapter is called "The Case of the Shabby Shoes," which I think was Tim Gunn's first big case. These were kind of cool, but learning that criminals call the electric chair "pew" or a passer of counterfeit money is called a "queer shover" (at least whenever this thing was first published) is sure to repay the 2 dollars I paid for it in no time.

Sharpening my observation skills.

Overall, it's not as corny as I would have thought, and had I owned it when I was younger, many crimes might not have gone unsolved, or maybe I could have used my powers of deduction to free some innocent people. Instead, my meager detective skills were put to use investigating bands and records, crime continued to spiral, and we ended up electing a TV conman as President of the United States.

One of the great things about being an adult is that you're fee to use your wealth and discretion to fill up those nagging holes in your soul. So check that Paypal account! Hit the yard sales this weekend! Get on Ebay at work! You've got childhood trauma to fix!

Reviews!

You want something that will make your life more majestic and cinematic? Check out "Ecstasy of Gold: Killer Bullets from the Spaghetti West." It's a series of super-limited (750 each) double vinyl collections of spaghetti western music. These sub-Morricone songs are all full of distorted guitars, horns, and shouted choruses. It makes a trip to the grocery store seem epic. You probably won't be able to get the actual vinyl, but you're pretty smart. You can probably find the MP3s somewhere on the internet.

You should also check out "Bleeding Skull: A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey." Hundreds of reviews of forgotten '80s horror movies. Skipping more mainstream stuff like the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series, Joseph A. Ziemba and Dan Budnik focus on forgotten gems like Demonwarp (Bigfoot running wild ripping off heads!), Black Devil Doll from Hell (just watch it), and even Gainesville's own Twisted Issues. Saving most of their love for homemade shot on video masterpieces, the authors have written an informative and funny guidebook to a whole new chunk of movies to look out for. Now if Netflix would get on the ball and get a copy of Demonwarp, we'd all be a little smarter.

The Old Man and the Sea

As a kid, most of my favorite books discussed scientific facts about dinosaurs. One of my absolute favorite books, however, was titled "A Little Old Man," which sounds like a title slapped on right before the book went to press.

"You still don't have a title? What's this book about? A little old man? Done. Roll the presses!"

Holy crap! I actually remembered the title and plot accurately!

Not much happened in the book. This little old man lives on an island by himself, does some chores, catches some fish and endures a hurricane. A boat washes up on shore after the storm, and he hangs out in the boat, finds a cat who has kittens and that's pretty much the end of the story.

I don't know why the man was marooned on the island, but he seemed happy. In fact, I really wanted to live on the old guy's island. He seemed to have everything he needed, he could catch fish when he got hungry, he got to explore an abandoned boat, and even had a pet cat.

When I read this book, my family didn't live anywhere near the water, but it seemed very peaceful and relaxing. Although why I wanted to relax as a kid is sort of a puzzling. What the hell was I looking to get away from?

This is where I wanted to retire to after another stressful day of being seven.

If the old man's island seemed interesting, the abandoned boat was even cooler. Several pages were devoted to the man exploring this boat before finding his cat. I was mesmerized by those pages. Maybe my later love of discarded, neglected items owed something to vague memories of the old man exploring this abandoned boat. Or perhaps the little guy finding and keeping a boat would inspire a lifelong affinity for scams in which I could get what I wanted with little or no work

Years passed and I forgot about the old man and his kick-ass solitary life. I was in college but back in Bradenton for Christmas Break. I had been in town for about a week, along with my friend Curt, and we were both planning to leave Sunday afternoon.

Curt called me early on a cold and rainy Sunday morning.

"Get up and come to my house."

As a twenty-something male, you could not ignore a message like that. Many adventures started from such a simple opening, and you certainly didn't want to miss out on any possible excitement.

So I got dressed and drove down to Curt's parent's house where he directed me to the DeSoto Memorial, a series of nature trails where Spanish conquistador, explorer, and Indian torturer Hernando DeSoto possibly landed hundreds of years ago.

"I was walking the dogs this morning and I found something," he said.

I knew better than to ask. It could be anything. Pirate gold, old Penthouse magazines, a secret trail to Crazy Nathan's* house, anything.

We parked the car and walked down the grey beach.

"Check it out," Curt said.

He gestured to a partially submerged houseboat about ten feet out in the river. Holy crap! Just like the little old man!

"The Law of the Sea says that if we occupy the boat, we own it."

I wasn't sure how Curt knew so much about maritime law, but this was intriguing.

We could totally fix it up, I thought. Screw going back to school. We could sail around the world, gaining knowledge of the seas. We'd catch fish when we got hungry. Dock in exotic ports all over the world. Maybe we'd even have a cat, like the old man.

"We could use my dad's canoe to get out there," Curt said.

"Yeah, that'd work," I replied, even though the thought of getting out on the swelling, cold river was taking some of my enthusiasm away.

"Yeah, we could do that," Curt said, his inflection matching my loss of enthusiasm.

After a couple of minutes we realized that we weren't going to occupy the houseboat, so we chucked some rocks at it and walked back to the car.

Like most ideas you have in your twenties, it made a much better idea than reality. My childhood dreams to own an abandoned houseboat would have to wait.

I still don't have my abandoned boat, but I'm constantly on the lookout. 





*Crazy Nathan was a crazy guy who we were somewhat obsessed with. It's a long story. I'll tell you some day.

Marathon Man

An ex-coworker has half-convinced me to run a marathon in December. I figure I did a 15K and didn't die, and a marathon would only be three times that, so how hard could it be?

Since I'm already setting goals I might not reach or even attempt, why not aim higher? I could write up my experiences into a book. You know, like the one where the guy read the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica or the guy who lived a whole year strictly adhering to the Old Testament*. Hell, people buy that stuff.

I could start talking about my shitty diet and general out of shapeness, and how I end up using the self-confidence and goal setting learned through long-distance running to solve my problems and become a better person. It would help if I were working through something big. I got divorced, but that's been a while. Haven't had anyone close to me die. Maybe I'll just make something up.

In between the fascinating chapters on me, I could have a history of marathon running, from the Greeks up to the rediscovery of distance running in the '70s. I could have interviews with ... I dunno, who's a famous runner? Yeah, them. And maybe someone who could humble me and teach me life lessons, like a vet who ran a marathon on a prosthetic leg, or a grandma who set a record after losing her husband of 40 years.

But the real spotlight would be on me, just like in all those other books. I would use my runs as springboards to give readers long discourses on my fascinating inner life. Like, running through Avondale could start me talking about my fears of growing old with no money. Seeing a family could get me talking about my relationship with my parents. Throughout, I could examine my fears and anxieties, and my history of poor decision making. Like, for instance, starting on  a whim to train for a marathon with very little knowledge or willingness to learn in the middle of a Florida summer.

The big payoff will come after I get this phantom book printed to thunderous acclaim. I can hear my NPR interviews  now - I'll be charming and witty, yet reverent when I talk about the grandma or the vet. That oughta be enough to get me on TV. And if I get an interview on Conan or something, I'd have a much better chance of meeting Scarlett Johansson than I would as a disgruntled librarian in Jacksonville.

From there I could launch my career as a humorist. Yep, no longer would I be a dude telling the same stories over and over (seriously, have you people ever actually read this thing? It's either me embarrassing myself, or getting drunk, or talking about how I like the Minutemen), I'd be a social critic shining a light on today's problems, using my wit and humor to inform the public like a modern day Mark Twain.

Plus, I'd be making bank and cruising with Scarlett.

Actually, that all sounds like a lot of work. I'm already possibly maybe running a marathon, what more do you people want from me?




* That was the same guy? Wow, he really has the market cornered on that stuff, huh?

A Unified Theory of Everything Awesome

I've been reading "The One: The Life and Music of James Brown." It got good reviews, but I probably would have checked it out regardless.

Something I learned: James Brown and the Flames' first paying gig was at a theater right after a showing of "House of Dracula." For those of you who don't know, "House of Dracula" was one of the mid '40s Universal movies where they just started throwing monsters together for maximum awesomeness. Like, Dracula would unthaw the Frankenstein monster to hang out with the Wolfman and they'd go around ...I dunno, terrorizing the town together until the Invisible Man would ride in on Mothra and fight them (I might have made up that last part). I caught "House of Dracula" when I was in second grade in Mississippi on "Friday Night Frights," and was hooked, like any reasonable person should be. Here, check it out:

So consider this. You've just watched Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolfman monster it up for an hour or so. Things can't get much better than that. You're thinking about heading home, but decide to stick around and watch a song or two from this band.

Holy crap! You just saw James Brown! While he didn't yet have that fake passing out only to be revived by his magic cape move (the greatest stage move in music), and "Please, Please, Please" was about the only song they had up to that point, the book states that Brown was competitive and hungry during these early shows he would attack the stage, dancing, fake crying, whatever it took to enough that keep an audience's attention and steal the spotlight from other bands.

This brings up another awesome coincidence. On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to step on the moon. Some might argue that the space program was a waste of resources, that we spent millions just to walk around up there, pick up some rocks and hit some golf balls. But to quote the inspiring words of John F. Kennedy, "We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because THEY ARE TOTALLY KICK-ASS."

People looked at the moon for thousands of years and we get an opportunity to drive little golf carts on it and jump around on the surface? Hell yeah, we're gonna go to the damn moon.
 
On the same day fifteen years later, SST Records releases two double albums, Husker Du's "Zen Arcade" and "Double Nickels on the Dime" by the Minutemen.

As a discerning individual, you probably don't need me to tell you about these albums - two of punk/hardcore's finest moments, albums that could be both raging and searching, expanding the musical palate, and creating dynamic, ambitious works of art that, to quote President Kennedy again, were "totally kick-ass."

Neil Armstrong on the damn moon. He's proud, excited, and humbled, yet still a little pissed he has to wait 15 years to hear "Turn on the News" or "This Ain't No Picnic."

So what does all this mean? Simple. Usually the Gods of Awesome dole out the treats over time, so we mortals don't get too used to things being amazing all the time. They realize it would make us lazy, weak, and dependent, and possibly wreck several economies.

Sometimes, however, they go a little nuts, like the people behind "House of Dracula," and just start throwing the awesome around willy-nilly. Religious scholars tell us that this keeps us on our toes - we never know when the next James Brown/Frankenstein team up will happen or when two seminal albums will drop on the anniversary of one of the awesomest events in world history.

Because of this, we can't give up. There are always going to be new corners of the world to explore, new music, new art, new awesomeness just around the corner. Sometimes it might take a while to find, but sometimes it explodes in our faces like a monster battle royale. All we have to do is be receptive.

Man, James Brown and Dracula. That would be the greatest show ever.

Mixed Media

Once people find I'm a librarian and they use up their Dewey Decimal jokes, they tend ask me about books. Here's some of the stuff I've been reading/recommending lately. Not too interesting, I know, but I'm sure I'll have more awkward tales next week or so. Trust me, that well ain't running dry anytime soon.

"What It Is" – It’s always a treat to find a new George Pelecanos book, and this one sort of snuck in. I didn’t see any reviews, the library didn’t get a copy, and hell, his last book came out about six months ago so I didn’t really expect another new book for a while. “What it Is” brings back private investigator Derek Strange, I believe for the first time since “Hard Revolution,” the excellent book focused on the 1968 DC riots.  This time the year is 1972 (well, actually it’s 2012 and Strange is recounting a story in a bar) and DC ex-con Red Fury is determined to go out in a blaze of glory, hoping his exploits live on after him. Characters from previous books pop in now and then, muscle cars and funk music are discussed, and the final chapter, where Strange wraps up his story in a rainy bar to a skeptical friend, is one of the best examples of male friendship put on the page.

"The Cover Art of Studio One Records" - If you like books but wish there weren’t all those pesky words cluttering up the pages, this is for you. Another amazing book by Souljazz Records focusing on Studio One Records, the major recording studio in Jamaica. Covering all the way back from Calypso, and focusing on the dozens of great Jamaican pop music mutations, from ska, rocksteady, dub and roots reggae (along with a surprisingly large gospel section), this is a gorgeously reproduced sampling of album art. Some of the covers look hand drawn and colored, some were repurposed later (sort of like dub) and some had awesome photos, like this one:

Or this one:

I’m partial to the earlier ones, with guys wearing cool suits as opposed to track suits, but for record nerds or people who appreciate awesomeness, this will be flipped through constantly, just like their previous book “Freedom, Rhythm and Sound” which focused on free jazz, and featured more graphics with black fists, Egyptian symbols and skulls.

"Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers"

One of the best music books I’ve ever read. Brothers Charlie and Ira Louvin performed breathtaking harmonies as the Louvin Brothers. Offstage there wasn’t as much harmony. Co-writer Benjamin Whitmer wisely takes a backseat to Charlie Louvin, who tells stories about whiskey, fighting, mandolin smashing, country music, music in general, sex, Elvis, hard times, touring stories, Hank Williams, anger, brotherhood, and love. The book is basically chronological, with short chapters each based on a certain topic. If you grew up in the South, this will be like having an old relative sit you down and tell you stories. 

As for DVDs, lately I enjoyed "Thunder Soul," a great documentary on the Kashmere Stage Band, a Texas high school stage band whose bandleader/teacher Prof Johnson encouraged to play funk and soul, rather than the big-band influenced songs the other high school bands were playing. Soon they were winning national competitions, flying to Europe and inspiring a sense of pride in their school and themselves. The kids were amazing musicians – the stuff they were playing could easily stand up against the giants of ‘70s funk, and the records they put out would become highly prized among DJs and beatdiggers years later. Special points go to the documentary for not taking the easy way out – it would have been easy for them to show the other band’s performances as hopelessly square, but the filmmakers take the high road – there are clips for comparison, but the other kids were talented as well. They just weren’t as funky. The second part of the film focuses on a reunion show by the band for Prof around his 92^nd birthday. I have a soft spot for old people, the concept of touching people without even knowing it (as anyone who’s been around me watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” over Christmas can tell you), and the idea that there are thousands of inspirational people around us every day, toiling in middle and working class jobs. If these happen to be your weaknesses, the final 20 minutes or so will have you sniffing like a little kid in a pollen storm. But not me, I took that stuff like a trooper.

 Music-wise, I'm old, so lots of reissues, including that Bitch Magnet 3 CD set. Got another one of the Thin Lizzy reissues, "Black Rose," which has some good slowed down versions on the extra disc. Waiting til payday to pick up the Feedtime boxset. A friend recommended Terry Malts "Killing Time" which he compared to Jesus and Mary Chain and the Ramones. Yep, sounds like that to me. Other than that I've been listening to Funkadelic over and over again. It keeps me happy.

Reading Is FUNdamental

Sure, I could try to dredge up some story from my past in the hopes of either getting some laffs or connecting emotionally with you. Possibly you've been through the same experiences, felt the same emotions and we can relate on a deeper level. That would be magical.

But it's a lot easier to show some pictures of other people's work and make fun of them. These are all real books I've come across the last week or so at work. Stop by and check them out!




It's what Dom would have wanted.



This book is over 200 pages long. I think I could cover the topic in less than half that.


Who knew Grady from "Sandford and Son" had a starring role in such a sexy book? Good for him! *



I jokingly call several of my close female friends crazy cat ladies. After seeing this book, I no longer feel they qualify.


* Actually, this whole story was an excuse to run more photos of "Sanford and Son" cast members, since "Aunt Esther Sanford and Son" remains the site's highest search term. So here's a picture of Grady.

Rate the Vampires

I read "Dracula" for the first time for a book club I'm doing at work. Strangely enough, I never read it before. I've read a hundred different abridged versions of it and seen even more of the movies, so I thought I knew the basic story.

Except the basic story is pretty different from the original. First of all, Dracula drops out after page 50 or so and it shifts to Lucy and Mina and their suitors, like someone snuck a copy of "Pride and Prejudice" into my vampire book. Dracula's death is strange, too. It's the last page and they just behead him and that's pretty much it. And Dracula has a mustache? Come on.

So I decided to rate the movie vampires. I was going to just rate the Draculas, but I expanded it a bit to create a completely arbitrary guide to movie vampires, just what the world has been crying out for.

Some of these I've seen recently in my run up to Halloween watching, some I haven't seen in years, but since this is the internet, I still feel that my halfway remembered version of a movie is absolutely correct.

Nosferatu (1922) and (1972)
The first time I saw the original I was at my Great Uncle Norwood and Aunt Tiny's house. Uncle Norwood was watching it on the TV in the Florida Room. I was about 7 and wasn't allowed to see it, which made me want to watch all the more. I read all sorts of books on monsters and ghosts and whatnot, so I figured I was old enough to watch some ancient black and white movie. I caught a glimpse of Nosferatu creeping up the stairs with his long claws and rat face and immediately started bawling. Sometimes the adults are right. Rewatched recently as a grown up, Nosferatu is still creepy and manages to create an overall sense of fear and unease. Sure, other German stuff at the time was more visually arresting with all those crazy angles, but man, that makeup job on Nosferatu is still aces.
Rating: 5 bats

Warner Herzog's remake with Klaus Kinski already has 3 points to recommend it. Klaus Kinski, Warner Herzog, and Nosferatu. From what I remember, this Nosferatu is more closely linked with the plague, but Kinski's Nosferatu is strangely able to become a sympathetic character.
Rating: 5 bats

Dracula (1931)
Dracula has it's problems. It's really stagey and you can see how movies were still trying to work out a style away from the florid silent tropes. There's a couple characters who either don't register at all or who spend way too much time on the screen. But when Bela Lugosi gets a scene, you're riveted. With his Hungarian accent and courtly manners that seem just a touch off, you can totally see how the Count was droppin' panties and stabbin' jugulars all across Europe. While nowhere near as scary as Nosferatu, Lugosi so completely owned the role that to this day if you grab someone at random and ask them to give a vampire, they're gonna do Bela Lugosi.
Rating: 4 bats as a whole, 5 bats for Lugosi

Christopher Lee's Hammer Draculas (1958 - 1974)
Christopher Lee's Dracula combined both the earlier approaches. In the beginning he could be smooth, but once he saw an unprotected neck or someone finally figured out he was a vampire, he'd become a feral, hissing fiend with the strength to toss people around his castle. You know what you're getting into in each movie; there's gonna be a visitor going to Draculaland who gets warned off by the natives, Van Helsing shows up, a bunch of pretty ladies in low cut gowns vampire around, there are some debates about science and religion where someone says, "Vampires? Why it's the 19th (or 20th) century," Dracula is eventually killed and then resurrected in the next movie. That's not to say that's a bad thing, even the ones where Dracula is running around in mod London are worth watching, and with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, the Dracula movies finally have someone equal to the Count on screen.
Rating: oh what the hell. 4 bats

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
I remembered not liking this one when I saw it in the theater, but I've warmed to it a bit more from constant rotation on TV. The Vlad the Impaler stuff is pretty cool, and Dracula as an old man is interesting, but seeing him walking around London with long hair and Lennon glasses and a wispy beard and mustache just doesn't jibe with my idea of a Dracula. Plus, this started the trend of vampires who whine about how terrible it is to be a vampire. Or maybe that was Lost Boys. It also loses a bat for there being no gratuitous Winona Ryder nudity.
Rating: 3 bats

Interview with a Vampire (1994)
This started the transformation of vampires from courtly Europeans or hissing beasts into college sophomores after a bad breakup, only with more frilly clothes and an urge to theatrically exclaim every emotion they are feeling. Really, how terrible is it to be a vampire? You get to sleep in cool old castles, turn into a bat, seduce ladies and you even get a cool-ass cape. If I were a vampire, you'd never hear me complaining about it.
Rating: 2 bats

Twilight (2008)
Obviously, I'm completely the wrong market for this, but come on. Vampires that don't turn into bats? That hang out in the daytime and don't drink blood? That go to school?
Rating: 1 bat, and that's generous.




The winner, and still champion

Reading List

Few things in life give me more pleasure than seeing movie punk rockers, so I pretty much had to buy a copy of Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide to Punks of Film since Santa crapped out. The thing is huge; at over 450 pages, it will stand as the definitive guide to movie punks. The size is justified, if there was a guy with a mohawk being booked in the background of a scene for 30 seconds, the movie gets a review.

Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly keep a conversational tone throughout, with an overall feeling of talking movies with a couple of your buddies. With review summaries like, "A stupid, unattractive man is denied intercourse," you know you're in for a good time.

They also have a good eye for Hollywood shortcuts and cliches: "...Wearing black means you're depressed; if you're male and a hairdresser, you are most certainly a flaming homosexual; dyed hair and headphones means you're probably a shocking and eccentric babysitter at the door of Steve Martin or Tim Allen,"

Movie punks were all over the place in '80s and '90s movies, whether showing how wild and weird the big city was, how things regressed after the Road Warrior inspired apocalypse, or just as zany sight gags in stories of nerds trying to get laid. Because of this, not only have Carlson and Connolly compiled an exhaustive tome on movie punks, they've created an amazing record of trash cinema, one that brought back memories of working through Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia to Film back in the early '90s.

Mixed in with the more cliche movie punks are longer reviews of what I guess would be considered the punk movie canon, Repo Man, Suburbia, Another State of Mind and Rock and Roll High School. Interviews are featured with actors, writers, musicians and directors, even a page-long interview with the patron saint of cinema nerds, the great Eddie Deezen.



Eddie Deezen!

The authors are opinionated, funny and rude when needed, yet are still able to convey what makes a movie like Suburbia stand out from the more exploitative fare, and to enthuse wildly about classics like Surf 2, Get Crazy, Rollerblade, and Class of 1984. Well, they're classics to me, anyway.

If you have any interest in punk rockers, trash movies from the '80s or fun in life, get a copy now.

I also managed to read Unbroken: a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption over Christmas, written by the lady that wrote Seabiscuit. It's the story of Louis Zamperini, who started out as a juvenile delinquent who decides to start running track, comes close to breaking the 4 minute mile, goes to the Jessie Owens Olympics, shakes Hitler's hand, causes an international incident by stealing a Nazi flag, survives 47 days at sea after his bomber crashes (fighting sharks with fists and oars), then survives brutal conditions in a series of Japanese POW camps for years. I, on the other hand, couldn't ride my bike on the trail yesterday because it looked like rain.

After coming home, Zamperini suffered from PTSD, and he figures the best way to deal with that is to go back to Japan, find the commander of the Japanese POW camp, and kill him.

Obviously not as light-handed in tone as Destroy All Movies, Unbroken is a great non-fiction page turner, one that's inspiring and awe-inspiring without giving in to "greatest generation" hokum. I mean, look at that sentence up there! That's material for like 3 or 4 awesome books! Read it and go hug an old person.

A Real, Actual Promotional Quote from the back of a Book

"Like Hunter Thompson on acid." - P.J. O'Rourke.

Not only is the whole, "like X on acid (or steroids)" my least favorite critic phrase ever (well, 'Mats' for The Replacements is up there, too), but wasn't Hunter Thompson Hunter Thompson on acid? And it was written by P.J. O'Rourke, who actually knew Hunter Thompson!

The Monster Mash-Up

There's this little old lady who comes into the fiction department fairly regularly. She's about 4 feet tall and has to be 100 years old. She loves supernatural romances and will go through piles of them in a week. She's exhuasted our collection and has had to use the interlibrary loan system to get her fix from outside the area.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as supernatural romances, but they all seem to involve some sort of vampire/werewolf/ghost hunter woman who ends up falling in love with a monster. And I have inferred from the back cover descriptions that they have a lot of sex.

Now, I'm a fan of both monsters and the erotic arts, but I don't really think the two should be mixed. Plus, when did werewolves become sexy? Werewolves are the lamest of all the classic monsters, spending most of their time as humans whining about their curse. You don't see vampires or Frankensteins doing that, do you? Hell no, they embrace their monsterness. And why can't a Frankenstein monster get some love? Nobody ever makes movies or books about getting poor Frankenstein some action. Hell, even his own bride rejected him. If you ask me, there should be more erotic fiction concerning poor, unloved Frankenstein. Somebody needs to get on that.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the little old lady. So she says, "You know the books I'm looking for. Anything with ghosts, werewolves, vampires, anything like that."

"Well, let's see what we've got. Any thing in particular you're looking for?"

"No, just as long as it's kinky."

Edited Version

I read a lot of books. I generally have one book at work I read on lunch breaks so I don't have to talk to people if I don't want to, and another one at home to read before I fall asleep. And hell, after 10 years of marriage, it's not like there's anything else going on in that bed anyway.

I'm not one to make a big deal about it or anything, like wearing READ buttons or sighing when people talk about "American Idol" and reprimanding them for not reading Plato or "The Federalist Papers" or something.

Lately, however, my reading has only served to make me angry. I was reading this book called "Heavy Metal Islam" at work. Basically the premise of the book is that young people in repressive, war-torn countries in the Middle East are increasingly turning to extreme forms of music, which could possibly incite a Velvet Revolution-type situation. Pretty interesting, huh?

So I'm going along fine, until the author mentions Iron Maiden's mascot, Freddy. Freddy? Jesus, who with a passing knowledge of metal doesn't know his name is Eddie? He also confuses a couple album titles for band names.

I still finished the book, although that Freddy thing still bugged me.

Then I was reading this book called "In Heaven, Everything is Fine," about this flamboyant dude who wrote the song that the lady in the radiator sings in "Eraserhead," and who starred in "New Wave Theater," which was apparently a nexus for National Lampoon/early Saturday Night Live people and Los Angeles punk.

Although opening with a fight between Fear and Chevy Chase will pretty much guarantee that I'm going to read it, the thing hurt my head with all the fact errors and generalizations. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks had their heyday in the early '80s, not the mid '70s. Full body tattoos were more likely to be seen in the circus in 1984, rather than a punk show. Nobody was "moshing" in 1981, they were "skanking" or "slamming." You'd pick "New York's Alright if You Like Saxophones" as an offensive Fear song? Really? Over "Beef Bologna?" "I Love Livin' in the City?" "We Destroy the Family?" A Boston band was splitting their set between reggae and jazz in the late '60s? Reggae was barely born in the late '60s, would a band in Boston really be playing it and expecting people to care? Doesn't the abbreviation LA mean Lousiana instead of Los Angeles? Was Eddie Murphy even a cast member of SNL in 1981 when Fear appeared? Well, OK, that one seems to check out, but I shouldn't have to be fact checking for a book unless I'm getting paid for it.


Every time I catch something like that, not only does it take me out of the narrative, but I wonder how much other stuff the author got wrong. I mean, if you can't get Eddie's name right, why would I trust you when you tell me about death metal in Iraq?

Don't publishing companies hire editors anymore? Why can't I just relax and fall asleep reading a book instead of getting upset that nobody bothered to tell this dude that Iron Maiden's mummy guy is not named Freddy?

Media Blitz

Finished "The Turnaround," the new George Pelecanos book this week. It was similar to some of his more recent stuff, in that it focused more on the consequences of a violent act in the past rather than his more cinematic earlier stuff that usually ended up in "Wild Bunch" like shoot outs between one or two protaganists and a gang of evil-doers. Actually, "Turnaround" seems to be almost a reaction to those books, in that you can feel the tension mount, and you just know there's gonna be a big showdown at the end, but it ends up swerving. As usual, the focus is on blue collar DC, with questions of what it means to be a man and father. And yeah, you're gonna get dialogue where dudes debate basketball, music and muscle cars. Don't know if Pelecanos is intentionally getting away from his pulpier crime stuff, but as always, he's a good read.

I should also be getting "I Got the Feelin' James Brown in the '60s" soon, which is a 3 DVD set of awesomeness. It includes a documentary explaining how James Brown stopped a riot through a televised concert, which I think I saw on VH1 in between comedians making jokes about Strawberry Shortcake and Swatch Watches. The other discs include the concert as well as assorted odds and ends of awesomeness, including stuff from the TAMI show, which you really oughta go youtube right now, as it includes my favorite stage move ever, where he passes out and has a dude drape a cape over him and try to pull him off stage until he re-energizes, throws the cape off and starts dancing again.

Also watched a double DVD of a Stooges concert from 2005 or so for review. While the concert was as good as you'd expect, the bonus features are kick-ass, with interviews with the band (excluding Mike Watt and that saxophone guy, both of which would be interesting) and an hour long retrospective which has just about every Iggy Pop clip from the '70s on, including talk shows with David Bowie. Pretty awesome to see how charming and charismatic Iggy can be talking in contrast to his craziness on stage.

Let's see, also managed to watch half of the last season of "The Wire" before my wife hijacked the Netflix queue and ordered the collected works of her boyfriend Johnny Depp. There's one storyline that seems out of character and too risky even for a character known for taking risks, but otherwise the show is as strong as ever, especially in the way it portrays day-to-day work, something not really seen that much in most entertainment. This season focuses on the media, and the newsroom scenes remind me of my limited newsroom experience, especially how there'd be the one guy who was like a living AP manual who you'd always hope to impress. I also love how the highest compliment the police give each other is "he's good police."

Other than that, just waiting for the rain to stop so I can finally get outside and ride my bike. This is the longest I've been off since I started in May (four days and counting) and I can feel myself getting fatter.