Are You Ready For Some Football?

I had an idea this morning. I wasn't fully awake yet, so I guess technically it was a dream, but I was aware enough that I could sort of watch over everything and tell myself that I needed to remember as many details as I could, as this was going to be the million dollar idea I had been waiting on.

In this dream, two guys decided to start a football league. Not like the XFL or anything, more like an adult intramural league, only with a Super Bowl involved. Actually, the more this dream unwound, it appeared that they were more trying to hijack an existing kid's league, like Pop Warner or something, but since their team was made up of adults (which somehow wasn't against the rules), they could crush the competition with no problem, and win all the money, fame, and accolades the Pop Warner Super Bowl awards.

As this dream was unspooling, part of me was watching, waiting to see what happened so that I could use it as a screenplay in my real, non-sleeping life.

The guys build a team full of grown-ups, including a huge fat guy who was originally going to be on the offensive line, but then they discovered he had an amazing arm, so the fat guy got promoted to quarterback.

There were some parts that didn't really make sense, like this guy who would pop up now and then wearing a white button-down shirt. He had a quarter-sized bloodstain on his shirt that would grow until his white shirt turned red. Nobody seemed to be alarmed by this. Maybe he was the coach.

Throughout the dream, another part of my subconscious was poking me, saying, "Did you get all that? Did you see that fat guy quarterback? Make sure you remember that. Fat guy quarterback is your ticket to a money-making screenplay."

When I finally woke up, I realized that my dream was a mish-mash of a bunch of different movies that pop up on cable on rainy Saturday afternoons, and I was much too lazy to write a bunch of scenes and characters or whatever it is you have to do with a screenplay anyway.

So I did the next best thing. By documenting the idea here on the internet, I have now registered a copyright, which I believe is how those things work. So when Fourth and Long starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson appears in 2015, I should get a sizeable paycheck.

Death Comes Ripping

In the near future, every band will have a documentary made about them. I'm eagerly awaiting Party at the Spoke House: Gainesville Bands of the '90s. But I usually end up watching them, even if I'm not a fan of the band in question, so maybe I'm part of the problem.

I didn't have my hopes too high for A Band Called Death. I figured it would be an entertaining hour and a half out of the crippling Florida heat, and I could eat some nachos.

But man, was it good.

Death was an early '70s  proto-punk band consisting of three African-American brothers in Detroit influenced by Alice Cooper and the Who. Black people didn't want to hear them. White people didn't really want to hear them, either. Actually, that's not really fair, they could have had a record contract with Clive Davis if they changed their name, but the band stuck to their guns, pressed a forgotten 7" single and eventually broke up.

35 years after the band broke up, they were rediscovered by record nerds and reunited and repressed a full album.

In between is a fascinating story about family, dedication, the power of creating against indifference, and the rediscovery of long-forgotten music. While I think the music is more hard rock than punk (not that there's anything wrong with that), the vibe is definitely punk in the creativity, drive, and stubbornness, seeing worth in music that was ignored or mocked by 99 percent of the world. (and in the funny/offensive name).

The second part of the movie lags a bit when it gets into the record nerds rediscovering the band (I never did figure out the story of the guy who saw the $800 single on ebay. Did he buy it? And why was Jello Biafra in there talking about weird records if he wasn't going to talk about the band/record in the movie? Do Henry Rollins and ?uestlove pass each other in the parking lot constantly as they get filmed for yet another music documentary? Do they carpool now?), but the ending of the reunited band playing to enthusiastic crowds more than makes up for confusing record nerds yakking.

Funny, touching, and rocking, A Band Called Death gets five stars, two thumbs up. Now I feel bad that I ripped my copy of the album from the library instead of buying it.

Lizzie Borden Took An Axe

I was rarely scared of movies as a kid, mostly because there was so much real life stuff for me to be afraid of: teenagers, little dogs (there was a one-legged chihuahua that lived my grandparents that absolutely terrified me), the future, grades, nuclear war, getting in trouble, sudden death, the explosion of the sun, you know, plausible real-life situations.

So yeah, ghosts, devils, Frankensteins, vampires, whatever you had, for the most part I could handle it. But put a psuedo-scientific sheen on it, and it became terrifyingly real. Like In Search Of, a popular TV show in the '70s/early '80s in which Leonard Nimoy, Spock himself, would present stories about the Bermuda Triangle or poltergeists or voodoo curses with just enough "This might maybe possibly could happen" to keep me tossing fitfully in my Star Wars sheets later that night.

However, every once in a while a movie would legitimately scare the crap out of me. Three of them I still remember. SSSSSSS, about a guy turning into a snake was one. We've discussed Dark Night of the Scarecrow. Now it's time for The Legend of Lizzie Borden, a movie that scared me when I was way too old to be scared of movies.

According to a quick internet search, The Legend of Lizzie Borden was a made for TV movie back in 1975 starring Bewtiched's Elizabeth Montgomery that actually won a couple of Emmys, probably for outstanding achievements in the field of creepiness. I caught it years later in the '80s.

At the time I had figured out how to get in pay channels on my parent's TV. It wasn't perfect, and it was jumpy and in black and white, but it worked, so would stay up late on weekends after searching the TV guide for nudity, violence, and the wild card, "adult situations."

The Legend of Lizzie Borden hit all three, and it was on regular TV so I wouldn't have to assume my usual position of kneeling in front of the television, ready to switch back to non-cable at the slightest sound from the house.

The movie covers the trial of the infamous murder case, while Lizzie has flashbacks or daydreams to the earlier events. I don't remember exactly how old I was but by this point I had seen all sorts of murders and killings in movies and had rarely been bothered or upset. Probably because it all seemed so far removed. I mean, what were the chances I was going ever going to be having sex in a deserted summer camp? Or have sex while I was supposed to be babysitting? Yes, it seemed almost impossible that I would ever have sex at all.

But Lizzie's flashbacks - holy crap. According to the movie Lizzie's dad kept an embalming room down in the basement, where at one point it looks like he's feeling up one of the corpses. There's also a strong current of incest down there, which, just to be even creepier, results in Lizzie accidentally pulling out one of the corpse tubes, resulting in blood splattering all over the place.*

Then there are the murders. According to the movie Lizzie took her clothes off before killing to avoid bloodstains. So my brain would go from "Wow! Lady from Bewitched is naked!** Holy crap, this is awesome!" to "Oh shit! She totally just chopped up her stepmother while smiling!" resulting in all sorts of disturbing feelings that the right medications and an army of psychiatric professionals have only recently gotten to the bottom of.

But what might have creeped me out even more is the overall tone, where Lizzie remains emotionless throughout her trial, even though her parents have been all hacked up. Naturally, the viewing audience knew she did it, and to see a completely remorseless killer who wasn't a Jason or a Terminator or something really freaked me out. It ends with her back at her hacked up parents' house after being declared innocent, and her sister asks her if she really did it. Lizzie doesn't say anything  (BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY DID IT! WE JUST SAW HER GET NAKED AND AXE THEM ALL UP LIKE A DWARVES ALBUM COVER!), and then the creepy slow ragtime piano starts up.

That creepy slow ragtime piano riff would be stuck in my head for years, by the way, as a sort of sign when something creepy happened.

I recently found a copy of The Legend of Lizzie Borden and yeah, it still holds up. Like Dark Night of the Scarecrow, I was initially amazed that this sort of thing could be shown on regular old TV where anyone could stumble upon it, and was thinking there was no way something like that could air today, but then I remembered all the hours of CSI shows all full of semen stains and decapitations and stuff.

The movie is still creepy, still unsettling, and like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Halloween, effective enough that you'll think you remember much more blood and gore than is actually in the movie.

Of course, after I bought a bootleg copy of it, I found that it's freely available on Youtube, so don't take my word for it - sit at your computer and creep yourself out. Just don't blame me if that slow ragtime piano riff keeps rattling around in your head.




* This scene would affect me almost as much as the scene in Return of the Living Dead when the old lady corpse is talking about how it hurts to be dead.


** True, it was TV nudity, but when you're 13 or 14 years old, that's more than enough. Hell, the bra mannequins in Sears were like walking though the red light district in Amsterdam.

I'm Your Garbageman

I had a serious craving for some trashy movies before October came and shifted things to horror. And yes, I realize that I'm usually in the mood for trashy movies, but sometimes only a particular sub-genre of crap will get the job done.

The last week of September was time for a mountain of garbage from the '80s.

Like Tougher Than Leather, in which Run DMC use WW2 vintage German Lugers and grenades to fight gangsters (this was almost disqualified since it is sort of a real movie, with like, plot and stuff, even if a large portion of the movie embraces the  "Hey, do something. I don't know...talk or walk around or something, I'm filming. There, that's great. CUT" school of filmmaking.).

Or Intrepidos Punks - which featured movie punks running around doing crimes and being bad and stuff. It was in Spanish, but like those cheap Mexican DVDs of Santo fighting monsters, you sort of figure out what's going on. Awesomeness transcends racial and language barriers. This one was also almost disqualified since it technically wasn't from the '80s, but come on. Movie punk rockers!

And one magical night I made a double feature of Joysticks and Surf 2.

The first 10 minutes of Surf 2 featured topless ladies, the sheriff from Blazing Saddles, an Oingo Boingo song, movie punk rockers, a cop named Chief Boyardee and a big fat guy eating a chain link fence.

Again, this is just the first 10 minutes. Eddie Deezen hasn't even shown up yet and we already have a classic.

Joysticks featured Joe Don Baker, more movie punks, more topless ladies, '80s video games (including a showdown using Satan's Hollow, a real, actual game that was available for little kids and stuff to play back then), a nerd, and another big fat gross guy.

Both of these movies were gloriously trashy, with no sense of reality or bringdown like so many of today's comedies, which feel the need to screech away from the laughs with 20 minutes of "But I only did all that crazy stuff to show I loved you," or "I've grown up now and gotten rid of my cool stuff," or "Dad, why didn't you ever come to my baseball games," No, these movies are pure ridiculous garbage from start to finish, and viewers are a little better for watching them.

Which brings me to Baggies, a movie that would have been the crown jewel of '80s trash comedy film making, had it ever actually been made.

Back when my roommate Todd and I worked horrible jobs at Kash n Karry, we spent a lot of time coming up with scenarios for this imaginary movie. We had a lot of time on our hands and used the power of our imagination to create a beautiful, magical world out of the boring, structured life around us.

Which was pretty amazing, considering we worked there less than a week.

Baggies was to tell the story of a group of heroes working as bag boys at a grocery store (hey, write what you know). It was to climax with the World Championship Bagging Competition, which I swear I've seen used somewhere since.

We would discuss all manner of situations for our heroes to get into, including the classic scene where one of them insists to his friend, "I am not having a party while my parents are out of town," which would cut to Oingo Boingo playing a house party (yes, with a pair of panties on a statue and a pizza on a turntable).

We also had a sexy lady bringing up two cantaloupes to be bagged. Possibly with the nerd fainting.

We were always looking for a good joke to run into the ground, so even after we quit the job we would spend much brainpower going over more jokes and scenes for our imaginary movie.

Our friend Pat joined in and contributed even more scenes. Regrettably, after almost 20 years many of these prize-winning scenarios are lost in the sands of time. Apparently we had a chimp loose in the store because of ...I dunno, hijinx. We also had a downhill buggy race between the bakery and produce departments.

At one point we considered actually sitting down and hammering out a screenplay, but that would require, you know, work and stuff, and it was hard to imagine any movie or screenplay matching the movie that was in our heads.

I'd like to think our unmade movie taught us all a valuable lesson. Not only that we were lazy, but that even a crappy movie takes motivation, energy, and effort. Not every movie can be a Surf 2. These movies are rare jewels, and we must cherish every one.

So please. Support the arts. Support Eddie Deezen. Support party scenes set to Oingo Boingo. Watch a crappy '80s movie soon and feel your mind and heart expand just a little.

Eddie Deezen, Greatest Actor of the 20th Century

The Mall Has It All

I have about a 20 minute window for shopping. Too much longer than that and I get sort of dizzy and bored and holy crap, why didn't I just order pants on the internet like a normal person instead of driving all the way out here on my day off.

This, of course, does not apply to the countless hours of my life I wasted digging through record and DVD stores, looking for that elusive catch that would make me a more well-rounded individual and, more importantly, the envy of my fellow nerds.

I didn't used to be this way. In fact, when I was in middle school I loved going to the mall. Loved it. In fact, the summer before high school a friend and I would spend almost all day there, even though we didn't have any money. I'd give the guy's name, but I haven't heard from him in years, and I don't want to sell him out in case he's running for office or something, you know? Me, I've got no prospects, so I don't mind implicating myself.

We would walk or ride our bikes there, which from what I remember was quite a trek. We almost always had less than five bucks between us, so we'd have to plot the best way to stretch it to last all day.

That was hard because we were addicted to video games. We'd usually start out in the arcade, which would take a couple bucks out of the pot right from the start, but what were we gonna do, not play Gauntlet?

We could usually go to a couple of the stores in the mall with single games and say the machine took our quarters and get a refund. The managers didn't really believe us, but we'd usually be able to get 50 cents out of that which was enough to keep the video game shakes from returning. If that didn't work, or we felt we had gone to that well a little too much, we could always play the video game systems in Sears, but that was a desperation move, sort of like alcoholics drinking vanilla extract.

Far away from Bradenton, in a wonderful land called California, the Summer Olympics were taking place. The commie countries had boycotted the games, giving America a huge advantage. Why did this matter to two kids in Florida? Well, McDonalds had a scratch off game where you'd win free food whenever America won an event. We'd buy a drink or small fries and almost always end up winning something else - thanks Carl Lewis! When people talk about missing the Cold War, I know exactly how they feel.

After our meal, it was time to hit the movies. We would hang around the outside of the theater until we found two ticket stubs on the ground, which was fairly easy, as nobody cared about littering back in those unenlightened days. We'd show them to the guy at the front, telling him we left to play video games if he ever asked, which hardly ever happened.

Once we got inside, it was relatively easy work to get into whatever R rated movie promised gore or nudity.

And the mid '80s were a glorious time for teen boys at the movies - Porky's rip offs, slasher movies, barbarian movies - you pretty much couldn't lose.

Like all good things, our Celebrated Summer at the mall had to end. One day the theater changed ticket colors,  so when we walked through, the ticket taker called the manager.

We were told to sit in a chair and wait for the manager. Naturally, as soon as ticket guy's back was turned we split up and took off running. I thought I had it made until I felt a tightness around my neck. Ticket guy had some good hustle and caught up to me, grabbing me by the back of my collar and throwing me to the floor.

I was hustled off to the security office and my parents were called. I was banned from the mall for a year. I'd like to think I didn't rat out my friend, but I don't really remember, so who knows. I probably told my parents it was all his idea.

I'd also like to think that this scare taught me that you can't get something for nothing, and scamming free food and movies was no way for a man to live, but that wasn't true at all.  In fact, in just another three or four years, my mom would get a call from the cops telling her that I had been arrested for stealing a pizza with another friend. But that's a story for another time.

Man, was I a shitty kid.

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.

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

The Power of Bollywood

I was in the back of a cab in D.C., while my friend Julie navigated.

"This music is beautiful," said Julie.

The cabbie made some sort of affirmative sound.

"Yeah, it's nice," I said. "Hey, I know this. Is this from a movie?" I asked the cabbie.

"Yes, yes," he said.

"Is this from Don?"

"Yes, it is," the cabbie exclaimed, a bit more excited.

"That movie's awesome!" I exclaimed. And I wasn't lying. Don is awesome. Here, read this review. If you're looking to an introduction to '70s Bollywood action cinema, this would be the one.


Don!

We talked for a few minutes about Don, Bollywood soundtracks, and Amitabh Bachchan's gazillion movies, and just like that, a gap was bridged, a gap between races, between cultures and ages, at least until we found that we didn't have enough money to leave a tip.

Weekend Warrior

Occasionally the gods of leisure will smile upon you. Maybe it's fate, maybe they just tire of seeing you trudge through your same routine every week, but for whatever reason they decide to throw a whole bunch of fun at you just to see you happy.

Although knowing that mythological gods could be dicks, they might just want to see if you die of a heart attack from fun overload.

For whatever reason, the gods decided to reward me by scheduling the Jacksonville Backyard BBQ Championships and something called the Cult Movie Drive-in on the same weekend, one of the weekends I was actually off work and could attend a smorgasboard of awesomeness.

There's not too much you can really say about the BBQ Championships, other than it's a good excuse to eat a whole bunch of food and ...I dunno, I guess the ticket goes to charity or something?

I had gone to last year's championship, and while it was pretty fun, it was also sort of unorganized. So there would be long stretches of no food, then a group would gather in front of some booth after somebody said, "They've got ribs" in the same tone you'd use if you had found a kid in a well who needed help. If you were in the back of the group, you might get some ribs, or you might get a big ol' helping of nothing.

This year, there were a lot more people cooking, so much so that I was so loaded up on samples that I felt sort of sick after we left. This is the feeling of accomplishment.


BBQ even makes hipsters smile!



They have this really progressive work release thing where inmates from the local prisons and asylums learn valuable life skills through cooking. Here, a local inmate displays his favorite cleaver.

From there we went to the Cult Drive-in thing. It was pretty dead, which might have had something to do with there being no advertising. I only knew about it because my friend Pat happened to stumble onto their webpage which he forwarded on to me, after having HIS MIND BLOWN. Seriously, the email he sent said something like "abaadabab this just broke my brain."

All sorts of famous-to-nerds people were there, and since they weren't bothered by pesky customers, they were captive to the nerds who showed up who would regale these poor actors with recaps of their favorite lines and how their roles in action movies back in the '70s were totally inspirational at their sad IT or library jobs.


Mink Stole from the John Waters movies was the first person we saw. She was awesome, sort of like a cool aunt. She totally wanted to steal my friend Matthew. Oh yeah, he was visibly freaked out by like 95 percent of the stuff there. He almost fainted when Ms. Stole suggested he talk to Ilsa (you know, the She Wolf of the SS). Ilsa's there by Matthew's shoulder. Poor Ilsa, no nerds at her table yet.


If you pay them for autographs, famous people will pretend to be friends with you.


Pam Grier offered to take me away with her, but I have too much to do here.


Jim Kelly no longer has his amazing afro (where I think many of his powers came from), but was still pretty awesome.

There were all sorts of movies of dubious quality being sold there. They had deals where you could buy 3 for like 30 bucks. I ended up with Moonshine County Express, Killer Fish, Three Tough Guys, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, some animated Dracula thing and ...I can feel your eyes glazing over from here, so I'll stop. Suffice it to say, I loaded up on treats, even though I have the feeling they're all gonna be released next week in five dollar Criterion reissues.

For the next few days I thought of all the stuff I left behind - some Bigfoot movie, a couple Italian Jaws ripoffs, some spaghetti western where Robert Mitchum plays a priest with a machine gun. Man, I really needed some of that stuff.

I noticed how everybody thought it was awesome that I was spending a ton of money on foolishness. I hope all these people remember that when I hit them up for loans when I'm 76 and headed to my third job.

Fred Williamson did a Q&A, which was just amazing. He looked almost the same as he did in the '70s, even though he said he was 73. He came in drinking a margarita and just started calling on people. He had a long list of people who's asses he should have or will or could kick.

I asked what his favorite role was.

"My favorite role? You've seen my movies, right? They're all the same. I look good, kick someone's ass, get the girl if I want her, then leave."

Someone asked if he'd accomplished his goals. He said he didn't have any, and said something like, "I never thought I'd play football professionally, or act in movies, or direct. Or be in this room answering all these dumbass questions."

After that, we went home and I fully intended to come back at 8 to watch Coffy on the big screen, but after my day's adventures, I stayed home and looked at all my treats.

When will the gods smile on me again? Who knows, the ways of gods are unknown to mortal men. I'd like to think they helped me out during Sunday's adventures, when I teamed up with Pam Grier, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly and we uncovered a wide-ranging conspiracy based at the BBQ Championships. I'd tell you more, but a lot of that information is classified at the moment.

Moving Pictures

I saw True Grit last night. It was good. As a general rule I avoid remakes, because, really, what's the point, but you know, it's the Coen Brothers. Even their crappy movies are pretty good.

Now that I'm out of the coveted 18-35 year old age range, nobody gives a shit what I think about movies, and it shows.

Actually, it doesn't seem like Hollywood gives a shit about movies, period. Three quarters of most movies are remade from an older, better movie (True Grit gets the Awesomeness Exception), or based on some TV show that nobody liked 30 years ago, or a video game or a comic book nobody cared about. And do you think anyone involved in any way in shit like The A-Team or GI Joe actually cared about it? Did the directors or writers really yearn to tell a story? Did the actors really try to find the inner B.A. Baracus? No, they didn't care, and I think they actually hate anyone who actually paid money or wasted their precious cable time to see their shitty movies.


The indie ghetto is almost as bad, but at least you don't feel the hate for the audience from every frame. More like condescension. You know as soon as you see the handwritten credits while a guy and girl tonelessly sing with a kazoo or ukulele, you're gonna get a story about a guy who works as a crossword puzzle editor who's gonna meet a girl who knits sweaters for birds navigate their way through the trials and tribulations of being young, quirky, and upper middle-class.

Then there's a gazillion CGI movies where plastic shiny animals trade pop culture references and fart at each other, but as I'm childless, I don't have to watch those.

It's been said there are only a handful of original stories, everything since the time of the Greeks or Cavemen or whatever has just been updating and refining these universal themes. But there are really only two themes for a good movie.

There is only "Holy Crap! Check this out!" and "Listen to this story." Examples of "Holy Crap! Check this out" would embrace everything from Buster Keaton to musicals to martial arts to exploitation flicks. "Listen to this story" could be anything from "There's this cab driver who's all messed up" to "This village keeps getting raided so they try to find some protection" to "This cowboy goes on a 5 year obsessive quest to track down his niece."

Obviously, "Listen to this story" could apply to anything, even movies based on crappy kid's TV shows that were made to sell toys, but it has an important qualifier. As soon as you have to add sentence like "Yeah, you remember that old commercial/sci-fi movie from the '50s/TV show," the "Listen to this" story gets weakened, and eventually dies. If you have to add, "Someone wears a fat suit and farts a lot" or "Nicolas Cage and John Travolta" or "Adam Sandler and his less-funny friends" or "Yeah, it's Will Smith's kid" the genre shrivels up.

Is this a perfect system? No, it's not. It's more a "I'll know it when I see it" system. But it works for me. I guess. I'm watching a PBS American Experience on the Civil War as I write this, so maybe I am too old to comment on pop culture.

How About a Little Fire, Scarecrow?

Ever had a movie scare you even before you've seen it? In the middle school circles I ran in, the movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow was a topic of much discussion, so much so that I knew just about everything about the plot years before I saw it. In this made for TV movie, a group of angry redneck townspeople, led by a sinister mailman blame Bubba, a kindly mentally challenged guy for hurting a little girl and go to his house to deliver some vigilante justice. Bubba's mom tells him to play "the hiding game," so he hides in a scarecrow. The gang finds him and shoots him, then they are picked off one by one by an unseen force after seeing a creepy scarecrow.


Dark Night of the Scarecrow was recently reissued on DVD, so I decided to face my fears. Hell, I did it with SSSSSSS, so why not give this one a shot.

Holy crap, I can't believe this was on regular old TV, for little kids and old ladies and whatnot to just stumble upon. Everything about it works, lots of atmosphere, actual characterization, and you're constantly wondering who is really knocking off the gang. That little girl who keeps singing all creepily? Bubba's mother? Is it one of the gang trying to ensure their secret stays secret? Or is it Bubba the scarecrow back from the dead? And hey, are they implying that the mailman is a pedophile? Could you do that on TV back then?

The weird part is, even though I never saw the movie, the shot of Bubba's frightened eyes seen through the holes in the scarecrow's face before getting shot has been burned in my brain somehow. I guess all that playground talk soaked in.

The last five minutes or so are some pretty creepy stuff, even if one of the victims is being menaced by a tractor and never, you know, just steps out of the way. Even discounting that, the final shots made me recheck that all the doors were locked, even though I have done nothing to anger any mentally challenged scarecrows that I can recall.

It helps that scarecrows, like mummies, are inherently creepy, even though they're not the most mobile creatures, and most people won't have the opportunity to stumble across a real one. Zombies and vampires have had their time in the spotlight, evil scarecrows will be the next big thing. Trust me on this one.

So yeah, use the Netflix and get this one in time for Halloween. Now if I could only get my hands on a copy of The Legend of Lizzie Borden, my childhood terror re-viewing would be complete.

If the Van's A-Rockin,' Don't Come Knockin'

I hate driving. Actually, that's not exactly true. Long drives are awesome. Driving alone through the sunset or late at night all caffeined up, eating boiled peanuts and listening to the Minutemen, or Thin Lizzy, or Naked Raygun, or Ted Leo, or any number of CDs I have to have on a long drive, or just half-paying attention to NPR? Man, that's some fun tymes.

But daily driving to go to work or the store or whatever? That shit's for the birds. This could be because I'm a terrible driver. I get lost easily, even in areas I've driven through thousands of times. I'm prone to road rage. I inspire road rage in others. There's a reason I ride my bike to work.

But if I had a van I'd be a much better driver, as well as a whole lot cooler. I had the chance to watch Supervan recently, a van/car chase/CB exploitation flick. While it didn't have the same effect on me as King Frat or The Greatest Movie Never Made, it was definitely worth watching.

There's this guy on his way to compete in this big van contest, see? His original van gets smashed up, so he gets Vandora, an experimental solar powered van this big company is trying to keep under wraps so they can keep selling gas guzzlers. He picks up a young woman along the way and they eventually fall in love. The CEO of the company is trying to stop him from entering Vandora. You can tell the CEO is bad because he looks like Ted Knight and doesn't like rock and roll. They all make it to the big van contest and see noted American author Charles Bukowski hosing down girls at a wet T-shirt contest. That's right, Charles Bukowski is in a '70s van movie hosing down girls in a wet T-shirt contest. You don't see Thomas Pynchon doing stuff like that.

All that plot stuff is OK, but what really makes Supervan worth watching is the footage of vans on display. While a lot of them just look like regular family trucksters or windowless molestermobiles, the few that don't are shining monuments to '70s awesomeness. Shag carpeting, fantasy airbrushing, chandeliers, pretty much everything you'd ever want in or on a van. The only thing bringing down the visuals is the lame country rock being played over it. Just imagine how awesome a bitchin' Fu Manchu track would be over all this. Here, you don't have to think too hard.

I love how exploitation movies act as time capsules for their eras. Churning movies out on the cheap, most used real people and sets, giving the movies a life and spark not seen in generic, sterile modern blockbusters. Watching the stuff filmed at the van contest brought me back to hundreds of flea markets, auctions and fairs my parents took me to at the time. I also learned that women were not allowed to wear bras in the '70s, which I guess I didn't pick up on as a kid.

Riding to work this morning I was thinking about vans, and their distant, snootier cousins, the Hummer and the SUV. A van is always inviting (except for those windowless ones). It says, "Hey, man, come on in. Ladies, check out the shag carpeting and waterbed. I don't know exactly where we're going, but dig this picture of Dr. Strange on the side. Let's get some beer and hang. You like Cheap Trick?"

SUVs and Hummers say, "I got mine. Fuck you. Out of my way, I'm on my way to a neighborhood association meeting."

I know which one I feel more comfortable with. As soon as the Honda dies (which probably won't be long, I'm close to 300,000 miles), I'm getting a van. Screw the fuel economy. I don't drive that much anyway. I just have to find someone who can airbrush a Conan the Barbarian mural on the side.

Two Gentlemen Discuss Cinema

The film up for review, John Frankenheimer's 1979 environmental horror film, "Prophecy." A few weeks back I got on a '70s 'animals attack people/Jaws ripoffs' movie kick and was told by a friend that this one was not to be missed. The following are our undoctored emails, definitely not done on work time, taken right after a viewing:

Me:"Prophecy." Just...wow.

Indian ax vs. logger chainsaw, monster tadpoles, burny bear fetuses, Holy crap, that big melty bear just totally ripped off the roof!

Patrick: Don't forget when they're all like, whew, the melty bear drowned, and then OH JEEBUS HE'S COMIN OUT DA LAKE!!

Scott: STAB HIM WITH YOUR ARROWS, INDIAN!!!

Patrick: Why must the white man poison the earth with his greed, Scott Adams? WHYYYY?

Scott: Hey, you like your paper, don't you? Well, then you're part of the problem.

Patrick: Hm, yes, well. I suppose I am. Bring on the melty bears then I guess.


I would like to add that the melty bears came about though a paper company dumping chemicals in the river, which makes our final conversation make a bit more sense. Oh, and check out that melty bear!

Five stars for "Prophecy."

Finally, My Talents Are Noticed

I get back to work Monday after a week-long vacation in which I forgot everything I ever learned about work (Charleston, SC. I'll tell you about it later). I'm on the public desk first thing. When I go out there, I'm blinded by a light setup and a bunch of college students filming a movie. One of them is behind my desk. They got permission from someone, so I don't really care, especially since they are keeping the crazies away.

They ask me if I want to be an extra, and naturally I say, "Hell, yeah," and sign some papers. I'm on the desk on the computer working through my mound of emails from vacation while a guy carrying a skateboard gets accosted by the the actress portraying the librarian who says, "Sir, you can't bring that into the building." Then she directs him to the foreign language materials (incorrectly, by the way. I mean, third floor, duh!). This shot was done over and over again for an hour.

The movie is tentatively called "Blue Llama" and is about a washed up professional skateboarder. Netflix that shit! I'm hoping I get a Pee Wee Herman as bellhop scene out of this, my first big break.

So I am sad to say that I am soon giving up the library biz. Showbiz is calling, and who am I to deny the world such entertainment?

Welcome to Scare the Children Theatre

I loved horror movies as a kid. Loved 'em. When I was a kid and we lived in the dorms at Mississippi State, every summer Friday night I'd walk down the hall to the communal TV and catch "Friday Night Frights." I'd spend my Scholastic book ordering money on monster books, so I knew all the monster's backstories.

Consequently, while I was scared of a lot of things in life (little yappy dogs, teenagers, lightning, etc.), horror movies didn't really scare me too much, mostly because I knew that they were made up, and that the chances of me running into a vampire or Frankenstein in Starkeville, Mississippi were pretty rare. My parents did take some archaeology classes, though, which freaked me out; everyone knows archaeology is all full of vengeful mummies and curses that can turn your kid into an orphan.

However, there were a few movies/TV shows that scared the crap out of me.

Sesame Street
The Count always sort of freaked me out. No, not because he was a little plush Bela Lugosi, but the fact that he had to count everything really rubbed me the wrong way. "Why? I know he's a Dracula, and they do weird stuff, but why can't he just stop counting?"

The Swarm
Saw this when I was about 8 with a friend in the theater. It's about killer bees coming up from Mexico and biting the hell out of people. The thing that really got me is the shot of a schoolyard (I think, I haven't watched it in years) where they show a dead little kid's hand clutching one of those big lollipops while bees walked over the sweet, sweet candy. That night my friend and I lost a lot of sleep due to the air conditioner's bee-like buzzing. I think we might have sealed up the windows and doors with towels just as a precaution.

SSSSSSS
So in this movie, Face from "The A Team" gets turned into a snake by a mad scientist. I'm not really sure why the scientist wanted to turn people into snakes, that's just the sort of thing you do, I suppose. The most horrifying part is the rejected man/snake hybrid:


I recently re-watched this, and yeah, it's still pretty creepy. But what was even more terriying than the creepy snake-man was the fact that my friend's mom was chain smoking while we were watching the movie. My mom had drummed into me the horrors of second-hand smoke and I was sure I was slowly dying of lung cancer as I watched a man turn into a snake.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden
So I watched this when I was probably 13 or so, much too old to be scared by anything on TV. It started the woman from "Bewitched" as the parent killing Lizzie Borden, and was a made for TV movie. How bad could it be?
Well, there's all this stuff about how the dad had a funeral home in the basement and it was sort of implied there was some bad touching going on down there among the corpses. I seem to remember that Lizzie knocks out a blood tube from one of the bodies as well that goes all over the place squirting blood. Later in the movie, Lizzie strips down so she won't get blood on her clothes while hacking up her parents. "Wow! Naked Bewitched lady," I think. "Now we're talking. Ahhhh! She's chopping up her parents!" The whole arousal/fear thing overloaded my teenage brain and freaked me out for days afterwards.

Turning an Epic into a Short Subject

I've been re-watching Lord of the Rings lately. While it's as awesome as ever, the whole Gandalf summoning the birds at the end always seemed like a huge cheat, especially after I found the following early draft of the script. I don't want to say that your life will be in danger after reading this top-secret leaked script, but I have heard that Peter Jackson's people can be quite ruthless. Enjoy, but don't tell anyone where you read it.

Scene One. interior, Frodo's house
Gandalf: "Frodo, this cursed ring's power is mighty and horrible. You must destroy it. You have a choice. You can either walk for months, facing terrible monsters and going up against great odds. You will lose friends and the comforts of home, but you will also learn about friendship and have the satisfaction of doing the right thing. Or I can use my wizard stick to summon these huge eagles, we can hop on their backs, drop the ring in the lava and be back in like an hour or so. Your choice, really."

Frodo: "I think I'll take that second one. The one without the monsters."

Gandalf: "Good Choice."

Scene Two. Their task done, Gandalf and Frodo are eating magical ice cream from a constantly refilling bowl back at Frodo's house.

Frodo: "This ice cream is great. Magic is the best thing ever!"

Gandalf: "It sure is, my little friend. It sure is."

End

The Curious Case of King Frat

With my work, the internet and Netflix, I have access to a wide-ranging variety of movies with just a few simple keystrokes.

Pretty much the entire catalog of film is available between the three; a world of fantastic visions, astounding tales, and, in certain films, something approaching great art.

So two weeks ago I rented "King Frat" from Netflix.

"King Frat" is a low-budget "Animal House" ripoff, without that movie's boring stuff like plot, characterization and logical narrative structure to get in the way of a strange collection of gross-out vingettes.

Although I have to admit, the newspaper headline "Big Fart Contest Announced" in 40 point type was pretty funny, especially when lead character Gross Out exclaims, "Holy shit!" as if war had been announced. And yeah, the nerd frat guy who looked like a 40 year old Robert Crumb was good for a laugh.

But after a while the hijinx of Gross Out and the gang just weren't doing it for me and I decided to cut my losses and stop watching.

And then I saw Tigert Hall. Hey! This movie was filmed at the University of Florida! I used to work in that building. From then on I was fascinated. Every location, every set - did I know where that was? Perhaps one of my old apartments was even the setting for The Big Fart Contest!

Then the end credits thanked the University of Miami.

So I froze the image of the building that started my love affair with "King Frat" and compared it to an online image of Tigert Hall. Yep, same building. Would an architect design two identical buildings for two universities in the same state? That seemed unlikely.

So I contacted my former boss at the News and Public Affairs office. After some ribbing about my taste in movies, he watched the trailer on youtube and was positive that building in the opening scene was UF's Murphree Dorm, and I've got to agree - looking at it now, I recognize the area as the one I walked through to get to my friends Jenn and Julie's dorm.

So why was the University of Florida not credited in "King Frat?" Were they embarassed? Did the Big Fart Contest headline hit a little too close to home? Was there a crusty dean trying to stamp out campus shennanigans at the time? From what the movies have taught me, I'd wager quite a bit on the crusty dean theory.

If anyone has the answers to these questions, the American filmgoing public deserves to know.

The Greatest Elvis Movie Never Made or The Healing of A Nation

Recently I've been rereading Peter Guralnick's double volume Elvis biography. Right now I'm close to the end, where Elvis doesn't want to record anything new and his concerts have become drugged out spectacles, where he'd give long, rambling speeches or forget the words to songs or just walk off stage after a couple minutes.

One of the things the King did seem to get excited about, however, was screening then-current blaxploitation flicks. He watched "Shaft," "Black Belt Jones," and "Across 110th Street" repeatedly, boring his hangers-on as he discussed these awesome movies over and over.

Elvis was so impressed with these movies that he wanted to star in his own action flick, which, as opposed to 80% of the movies he had starred in, he would have actually give a crap about.

"I want to be the baddest motherfucker there is," said the King, according to Guralnick.

The Colonel wanted him to do a semi-documentary on karate, then convinced him not to do any movie at all and Elvis died a few years later, brokenhearted.

Now here's the movie that should have been made.

Elvis and Rudy Ray Moore, Dolemite himself, run competing karate studios on different sides of town. Elvis' school is mostly white, Rudy's is mostly black. There is some tension between the two schools, but the King and Dolemite respect each other's martial arts abilities and bad-ass fashion sense, so they have a wary understanding.

Meanwhile, The Man (played by a dead ringer for Richard Nixon) is scheming to take over the youth center where the two schools meet for tournaments and use it to get kids hooked on dope. Nixon uses his Southern Strategy to divide the two races into fighting against each other rather than working together to fix their city.

Then Elvis and Rudy have to team up together and unite the city to take down The Man with their kung fu.

The soundtrack would be '70s Elvis, with assists from Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. Oh, I should probably put in "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye, even though that was the title song for another movie, just 'cause it's so bad-ass. We'll have it in the scene where Rudy and Elvis ride around looking for information. They're both sort of weary, especially since the comic relief has just been killed (I'm picturing Jerry Reed, Burt Reynolds and Isaac Hayes), and they're steeling themselves for the big showdown.

Final scene would be Elvis and Rudy standing on a pile of rubble as the sun rises after the big battle. Elvis' "American Trilogy" is playing. As the "Glory, glory, hallelujah" line rises, Elvis and Rudy shake hands. In the digitally remastered version, we can have the ghost of JFK embrace Barack Obama off on the side.

What would have happened if this movie were released? For one, with our country's racial problem fixed, America could put our energies elsewhere and I would be dictating this to my sexy robot secretary from my flying car.

For Elvis, it would have rejuvenated his sagging spirits, he would have fired his manager, kicked out all his sycophants and hangers-on, dumped the pills, and started making music again. His 1980 tour with the Clash would be seen as a high point in both his career and the history of awesomeness.

President James Brown would have led us into an unprecedented new age of peace, prosperity, and funkiness. George W. Bush, freed of the expectations of having a Presidental father, would have stayed in Kennebunkport, running businesses into the ground, terrorizing the help at the club, and living off his parents. He would gain fame as the model for Ted Knight's grandson in "Caddyshack."

Terrorism, hippies, conservatism and fundamentalism of any stripe would never gain a toehold in America, because nobody wanted to be the dick that wrecked the place that gave the world that awesome movie where Dolemite and Elvis fought crime.

Me? Well, for bringing this outline (well, I guess my parents would have had to do it, since I would have been in grade school) to Elvis' attention, I become one of the richest men in the world, regularly recieving loving tribute from all the nations in recognition of my gifts.

Man, I gotta get working on that time machine, quick.