Tura, Kindersleaze, the birthday situation

Hi.

So, it's my birthday. I'm 39, which is not all that exciting an age, but you only get to be 39 once, so I will do my best of enjoy the hell out of it. How did I celebrate this not-so-momentous event?

Well, here's the thing. I'm a rock writer, not a rock star. I try to live a quiet, unassuming life, free of dramatic flourish or bitter regret. So there was no booze, no benders, no blood, guts, and pussy. I did still indulge, though. I had actually been planning this all year. See, I have a pretty strict diet. I eat mostly protein and raw vegetables, and I never eat fat, sugar, or carbohydrates. This is because everybody in my family is fat, most of them have Diabetes, and they usually die somewhere in their 60's. So I'm trying to escape my genetic fate. But I decided a few months ago that this weekend I would eat whatever I wanted to. So I did. From Friday to Sunday I ate Indian, Italian, cold cereal, pizza, ice cream, donuts, and a mound of peanut butter cookies. Theoretically, it should have been glorious, and I suppose it sorta was, in spots, but mostly it made me feel awful. Everything was topsy-turvy. My stomach hurt, I had a headache, I had sudden waves of depression, and I was very over-tired, even after sleeping for 8 hours. The whole thing  backfired on me. All I want, at this point, is a plate of broccoli and steamed chicken and a glass of Perrier. And possibly a stomach pump.

That being said, I am already looking forward to doing it again next year. Hopefully I can even fit in Chinese on my 40^th.

And what did I get this year, besides a bellyache? I'm glad you asked. I only received one present this birthday, but it's a doozy. Stacey, the beautiful bride of Sleazegrinder, got me this unbelievably awesome Tura Satana statue! I think it's about 14" high. It was sculpted by Mark Alfrey, and it's a limited edition. There's only 500 of 'em out there. The detail is amazing, particularly in Tura's ample, anchor-like ass, which Alfrey obviously spent a lot of time on.  It's also heavy enough to stove somebody's head in, which is a bonus.  I will cherish it forever.

For comparison's sake, here's the real one, in a shot from Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!:

Otherwise…oh, I wanted to share this photo with you. When I was at my mother's place on – imagine that – Mother's Day, I went through some old photos and found this, my kindergarten class picture in 1974. I was stunned by how well this photograph summed up not only my childhood, but pretty much my entire life up until around the age of 30. I mean, just look at me – I'm a fucking mess. Overweight, stuffed into an ugly, ill-fitting, thrift-store polyester suit, one collar in, one collar out, with a stunned look on my face. This photograph screams: "I am not prepared for any of this. Life is going to roll over me like a tank. I have no chance whatsoever. Please help me."

Here's a close-up of your favorite cult hero:

I love it. I bought a frame and I'm going to hang it on my bathroom wall and stare at it every morning while I shave. It's a miracle I survived my childhood. Especially in a suit like that.

In other news: well, it's the usual bullshit from me, really. The profile for the book Paul and I are writing got deleted for some reason, so it would be cool if you added us as a friend: www.myspace.com/abookaboutboobs . If you didn't know, we are writing a book about the history of teen sex comedies. Hey, if not us, then who, exactly? Anyway, we'll be updating the page pretty often with reviews and other cool junk, so please check it out.

The first all-music edition of the Sleazegrinder Podcast will be up in a week: one hour of pure sleaze, vintage and now-tro, so please subscribe. You'll dig it.

Sons of Guns III is out now with the new issue of Classic Rock. Check it out, it's a monster.

I'm currently working on a Black Oak Arkansas story for Classic, and I'm gonna be doing a Valient Thorr story for Metal Hammer later this month. Who knows what else? Stay tuned, keep reading Sleazegrinder.com, etc.

I'm sure I have more to tell you, but the sugar buzz from the cookies is finally wearing off, so I will probably  go to sleep now for 16 hours or so.

Stay rock!

Ken

Jimi Hendrix - the Sex Tape?!
Category: Music

Hi. Just finished a story for Classic Rock about the Jimi Hendrix sex tape. Interviewed Cynthia Plaster Caster, who is Vivid Entertainment's resident 'expert' on the 8mm loop's authenticity, since she did, after all, make a mold of his penis in 1968 or so. If you think that sounds tenuous, I should mention that the other expert on-hand is supergroupie Pamela Des Barres, who never actually saw Jimi's penis, but heard plenty about it from Cynthia.

The DVD itself is pretty interesting. Most of it's running time is dedicated to a half-hour documentary about sex in the 60's. It's got lots of cool pix of naked hippy girls. I've got one for my wallpaper now, it's fantastic.

Cynthia was a lot of fun to talk to, very witty and frisky and flirty. Calls you "Doll", which I like. Here's an excerpt:

"The first thing you see is this long, purple dick flanked by two girls. You can't see the guy's face yet. And a couple of seconds later, it was all sinking in to me who this was, because I recognized the cock. Turns out it was Jimi Hendrix's face peeking out from behind!"

Here is a still from the movie. Does it look like Jimi? You decide.

The DVD is available now from Vivid.

Look for my brief but extremely compelling story on it in the next ish of CR.

And stay sexy!

Ken

6:31 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Interview Out-take: Christian Death Vs. Croatia
Category: Music

Hi. I recently did a story on American death-rock pioneers Christian Death for Metal Hammer. I have no idea when the story will appear, because Metal Hammer doesn't usually tell me anything. It's always a surprise. Soon, I'm guessing. Anyway, this story didn't fit, but I thought it was pretty funny, so here it is. Christian Death are on tour, by the way. So, check 'em out, if you go for that sort of thing.

Above: Valor (vocals), Maitri (vocals, cleavage)

Maitri: So many things have happened to us that seem like they couldn't even happen to a person.

Like what? Bombs? Fire? Fights? Valor, didn't that dumb band Red Lorry Yellow Lorry have you arrested when you toured with them?

Valor: Yeah. Playing with other bands is never an easy thing. Bands are always in competition with each other. Who's going to have the longest soundcheck, or the most time on stage? It was a co-billed tour where one night they were the headliners and one night we were. We were doing this all over England. One night their sound engineer was having a war with us, he was changing the calibrations on our side of the mixing board. So I confronted him about it, and we got into a shoving match. It escalated to me giving him an open-handed slap to the side of the face. And then he called the cops on me. Anything like that in England is considered assault, so they carted me away and locked me up.

Maitri: That's a really boring story. There's way worse stories, like getting stopped at borders. They'd check the entire bus and make us stand outside for hours. One time John from Cradle of Filth was playing with us and he got arrested, and they wouldn't let us see him, so they started chasing us with baseball bats.

What? Who was chasing you with bats? The cops were?

Maitri: Yeah. Cops. They invent things, they inspect the soles of your shoes. It's crazy.

Valor: Well John, he's in Cradle of Filth, so he had this real rock star attitude he wasn't taking shit from anybody. But it was because he brought this book from his house. He used to smoke a lot of hash and he had this book where there was a tiny bit of hash pressed between the pages and they found that shit. And he was busted.

Yeah, but where the fuck were you where cops had baseball bats?

Valor: At the Croatia/Hungarian border.

Hahaha, say no more!

11:13 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

interview out-take: Everclear VS. Australia

Hi. I just did a "Welcome Back Everclear" story for Classic Rock, and this amusing anecdote from my interview with Art Alexakis was left on the cutting room floor. So to speak. Dig.

What's with your feud with Australia? They threw shoes at you?

There's no feud, that got blown out of proportion. Here's what happened. We're playing a show in Wollongong, which is this blue collar town outside of Sydney. Australians are wonderful people, they just drink a fuck of a lot. They drink and have sex, because there's not all that much going on. I'm singing this one sensitive part of a song, and it's dark, and there's a spotlight on me,  and all of a sudden a boot comes flying through the air. It hits me square in the mic, drives the mic into my mouth, breaks a tooth, cuts open my mouth, and I'm just like, 'You know what? I'm done for the night. If you wanna throw something, thow panties and bras. Hurting me isn't part of the deal.' I say to Craig (Montoya, bass), 'Let's go', and he says 'No, I want to stay', and I say, 'You want to stay without me? Fuck you.' So we got into an argument. People say they saw me hit Craig. I didn't hit him, I just called him an asshole. So I get off stage and then he gets off stage, and he says 'I'm sorry', and I go 'That's cool, let's go out and play an encore'. We get off stage and we're still pissy with one another. We get to the hotel, he calls his girlfriend and decides to go home. That cuts the Australian tour short. I say, 'Are you quitting the band? Because if you are, that's cool, but let me know'. He says 'No, but I just want to go home. I'm done. It sucked, because we had to cancel our New Zealand dates. He was being a big baby. So he went home and we did a European tour without him. And that was it.

So, you've been to Australia since then?

No. That was the last record that did well over there. The next record wasn't rock enough for them.

In order to do well in Australia, you really have to rock? That's fucking awesome.

Apparently with our fans, yeah. I'm not really worried about it.

Read the rest in next month's CR!

-Sleaze

8:15 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

State of the Sleaze Nation, Spring Edition

Hi.

Just wanted to check in and mention some of the latest goings-on in Sleaze-land. But first, the lasting lines from some of the movies Stacey and I saw last weekend.

Young @ Heart, a pretty great documentary about an elderly chorus group in western Massachusetts who sing, like, Clash and Sonic Youth songs.

"Well, that's just troopership. Or whatever you call it."

- 80 year old chorus singer Fred, who learned both parts of the Coldplay song he had to sing at the next Young @ Heart gig, just in case his duet partner Bill couldn't make it.

"We have a marriage based on faith and trust. I have no faith in her, and she doesn't trust me."

 - Fred again, talking about his 54 year-long marriage.

Zombie Strippers, which has plenty of both. Starring Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson, who is hilariously skinny at this point. She wears zombie quite well.

Army Sargeant, giving orders before zombie attack:

"Ok, so we get them all in a circle, and then we give them the Big E!"

New recruit:

"Elvis?"

Stripper-from-the-old-country:

"Vaya Con Ronnie James Dios!"

Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Latest naked penis-intensive comedy from the Apatow laff factory.

Paul Rudd's stoned-immaculate surfing instructor, offering some sage advice:

"When life gives you lemons, you say 'Fuck the lemons', then bail."

Bonus Paul Rudd quote (dude stole the show):

"I like her red hair. I wonder if the carpet matches the pubes."

Jonah Hill, as creepy guy who works at the hotel and moonlights as some sort of musician:

"I have a quick question for you. What did you think of my demo? Did you 'get' it?"

British rock star dude:

"I was gonna listen to it, but then I decided to just go on living my life."

Funny movie. Too long, and they cheated on Mila Kunis's boobs, but still, worth a ticket.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? Morgan Spurlock's latest film is a travelogue to the middle east. Morgan goes to all the Osama-related places he can – Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia (easily the scariest place I've ever seen) looking, not so much for Osama, but for what it is that so divides Westerners from Middle-Eastern Muslims. What he found, instead, was that we have much more in common with them than we think. It's great stuff. Anyway, best line was when Morgan was learning some basic phrases to use when he got over there.

Morgan:

"How do you say, 'Don't take me, take the cameraman'?"

So, here's the last page of this month's issue of Classic Rock, announcing Songs of Guns III, the latest in the annual compilations of new bands I put together for them. I felt a swell of pride that they called 'em 'legendary'. That's pretty cool. I will say that this is easily the strongest of the three. I compiled the entire list in an hour and amazingly got all the bands on there. You'll be able to pick it up with the May issue, out April 30^th in UK and Europe and the end of May here in the US and Canada. I hope every body likes it.

Loyal Sleazegrinder.com readers have probably noticed by now that the Sleazegrinder message board is no more. I decided to get rid of it because, well, it's $8.00 a month I can save. Social networking sites like this one make message boards sorta moot anyway. Everybody that was on there is on here, so if anybody misses one another, write an email. Or call. Or just show up unannounced for dinner one night. People love that!

It is a good idea to spend more meat-space time with friends, though. People are getting way too virtual these days. You know what the number one social activity was in the 1970s? Hanging out on stoops. Everybody did it. Sat on stoops and talked to each other. It was wild.

So, one thing I'm pretty excited about these days is Boobs! the book. Paul and I have been talking about working on a project like this for years, and we're finally knuckling down to do it. It's going to be a history of the teenage sex comedy, from the beach blanket movies of the 50's all the way to Superbad, with most of our time devoted to the 70's and 80's, when teenage T&A flicks were all the rage. However, it is becoming apparent to me as we go along that this book is about much more than that. It's about culture war and the death of innocence and love and longing and it's about celebrating life, all of it, even the parts that make you squirm. And it's also about boobs, of course. I think it's going to be a splendid book. My good friend David Kerekes will be releasing it on his Headpress imprint. David put out my Gigs From Hell book a few years ago, and we've been talking about working together ever since.

We put together a Myspace page for it and we'll be doing a fairly regular blog there, so please drop by, become our friends, and subscribe. There will be lots of cool stuff happening over there.

In other news…

I don't even wanna talk about it anymore, but I had another bike stolen not too long ago. That makes four, if you are counting. Stacey heard a rattling outside, and by the time she got to the window, the bike was gone. Those rat finks. So, this time I took a different tact. See, the reason they get stolen is because I have to leave them outside. Our place is too small to have one inside. So, here was my very European solution: a folding bike. It's not as stupid as it sounds.

It folds over in the middle. The handlebars fold down as well, and the seat detaches. The wheels are only 20", so they take up less room. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds to put together or take apart. It fits neatly into the trunk of our compact car.

How does it ride? Well, just look at the thing. It's a fucking nightmare to ride. It ain't easy getting anywhere on tiny wheels, man. But at least it's safe!

In other news I'm tired of talking about, I got a haircut. My first one in 18 years. I have not taken a picture of said haircut yet, but will soon. I just couldn't live the balding-dude-with-a-pony-tail lie anymore, man. Even George Carlin cut his off. I opted for a closely-shaven aging action movie type cut, and I'm pretty happy with it. I was sorta worried I would lose some of my superhero powers if I looked more like an average citizen, but so far that has not happened. I am still masterfully cool.

Speaking of cool, I picked up a Pearl xylophone with vintage mallets and I'm bangin' away on them in preparation to write a couple songs. You know how kids listen to Led Zep or the Rolling Stones or Pablo Cruise or whoever and decide they've got to form their own band? Well, I'm almost 40 and that's never happened. Until I heard The Incredible Bongo Band. More about them later. Suffice to say, they were the best bongo-fuzz band of the early 1970's. I listened to their first record and was so inspired, I called a bunch of my screwball cronies and got 'em to join me on a one-single musical adventure. It's not gonna be a rock n' roll band, necessarily. Quite frankly, I'm a little too cool for rock n' roll at this point. It'll be more like a jazz-funk-bossa nova sort of affair. I lifted a name from an IBB song – "Raunchy '73", and over the summer, I will write two incredibly groovy songs, which we will record over the fall and release as a single in the winter. And then we will break up by Xmas.That's the plan. I look forward to seeing how far we get, but already, there's snags. My trumpet player is a Socialist and wants political lyrics, even though I told him the songs are mostly going to be about air travel in the late 60's (you could smoke on the plane! And the stewardesses wore miniskirts!). We compromised, and he is going to paint his trumpet red, in a sort of quiet protest. We may even exploit his Commie-ness, and get him a blood red tuxedo. The rest of us will wear pale blue ones. Anyway, it's gonna be some fucking scene, believe me.

Here's Apache, by the Incredible Bongo Band. Incredible! Bongo-y!

It's finally starting to warm up around here. Trees are budding, the sun is hanging around a little longer than usual, and sometimes, you can even stroll around comfortably. It's nice. Unfortunately the housing market is in such a tailspin at this point (Thanks, W) that it doesn't look like we'll be able to sell our condo and move to Arizona any time soon, so a little warmth goes a long way to cushioning the blow. We've got film festivals coming up and summer tours and hopefully beach days and long, lazy afternoons feelin' groovy. Sweet.

So that's where it's at, man. Boobs, xylophones, summer on the way. Who could ask for anything more?

It's a kick-ass life, isn't it?

Talk more soon.

Ken

3:14 AM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

State of the Sleaze Address

Hi. So, I know it's been a long time since my last blog, sorry about that. Everything's good. I'm still writing. I revamped the website, it looks real swank now. Check it out.  I'm learning Spanish on the Nintendo DS. I'm not eating any carbs this year. Stacey's still trying to find a job in Arizona so we can move far away from this cold, cruel town and bake in the desert sun. So, you know, everything's groovy. I hope things are swell with you, too.

The reason that I'm blogging tonight is because I've been doing a podcast called My Kick Ass Life: The Sleazegrinder Podcast for the last year (here's the RSS feed, please subscribe!), and my 13th episode has been doomed and cursed. I recorded it twice, and both times the recording was bedeviled. The first time only the first 6 seconds of the 90 minute podcast was actually recorded. The second time, it came out covered in weird clicks every 30-45 seconds. However, I did not want to just let it die, so this morning I had the crazy idea to just transcribe the tapes (actually MP3's, but tapes makes for a better visual) and present them here as the lost, unlucky 13th episode. I did this one with fellow Sleazegrinder.com scribe and long-time crony Paul Gaita. We talked about movies, mostly. Movies and bullshit. I hope you like it.

Sleaze: hey everybody, welcome to my kick ass life, the podcast that's all about me. And my kick ass life. With me today is…I was thinking about this, if Sleazegrinder.com was a band, this guy would be the lead guitarist. It's Hollywood Paul Gaita. Hey, Paul.
Paul: Hey, Sleazegrinder.
S: So, this is the thirteenth episode, but it's really Episode 13 take two, isn't it?
P: Yeah, you want to tell them what happened?
S: We recorded this podcast two days ago, and it all went to hell.
P: Maybe because it was the 13th episode.
S: Maybe. Maybe it's cursed. (Note: It was, obviously.) All I can say is that the program I used to record the first one, Pretty May…that program can go to hell. (So can Hot Recorder, the one I used the second, ill-fated time)
P: With 20/20 hindset, we can safely say that it wasn't our best work.
S: Twice, two times, I've used that program, and both of them were the best podcasts I've ever done, and they were both lost.
P: This might actually be our 15th podcast, if you count the lost episodes.
S: Yeah, if you think about it. Anyway, a lot of stuff has happened, just in the past couple of days.
P: Really? In the past couple days?
S: Sure. Wait, nothing's happened to you in two days?
P: Nothing besides I'm slowly dying from this disease that's slowly wiping out Los Angeles.
S: Is there panic in the street yet?
P: It's on the verge. You can see it, like, you know those scenes in news broadcasts with people just running amok? That hasn't happened yet, but I predict it soon.
S: Do they have daily news reports about the declining health of people in Los Angeles?
P: They kinda do, but I don't watch the news out here.
S: You don't watch the news?
P: No, because it's really bad. Generally, the news out here is all car chases and underwear stores opening up. And volcanoes.
S: Wow. That sounds like fun news to me!
P: It is, to a certain extent, until you realize you can't get any real information on the world around you. Then it's just sorta frustrating.
S: Well, that brings us to our first subject of the podcast, the Kick Ass News!
(insert Kick Ass News theme, which I have yet to write) So, do you have any follow-up news on your last news story, the one about the moose?
P: I don't. It's still an ongoing investigation. Just to reiterate, in case you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a particular highway in Alaska that's dominated by cliffs, and apparently over the ast few years moose keep falling off this particular cliff and plummeting onto the road below, which makes for an extremely dangerous situation, and they have no idea why this is happening. But in terms of developments, as they say, there are no further developments.
S: Alright well, listen, brace yourself for the news about vaporizing trash in Florida.
P: I'm ready. S: So in Fort Pierce, wherever that is, they have this big dump, and they're planning on vaporizing all their garbage using temperatures hotter than the sun.
They're gonna vaporize the trash in the same way they used to vaporize things in like, Empire pictures in the 80's.
P: With lightning bolts.
S: Like in Zone Troopers, or something.
P: That's scary, but the really scary part of that story is that it's happening in Florida. Have you ever been to Florida?
S: yeah, twice.
P: That's right, you sorta liked it, right?
S: At first, because you can go to the beach at Christmas time. That's pretty seductive. But then on further inspection, you realize the whole state is full of old people and maniacs.
P: That's the real drawback to me. When I went there, it was apparently "Fire season" , and I remember getting off the plane and it smelled like the entire state was on fire. So that was a warning sign for me. And now they've got a death ray? That can only be bad.
S: They have a fire season? Jesus. Does it overlap with the hurricane season?
P: I don't know, man. All I know is that it smelled like fire, and then we drove through the swamp, and then I was at Universal Studios. If that's not a hell-trip, I don't know what is.
S: Right. The problem with vaporizing trash is, it starts with trash, but what do you start vaporizing next?
P: Pets.
S: Yep. People are gonna start vaporizing each other for kicks. Especially out there. They'll put the vaporizing ray on top of their pick-up truck.
P: Or on their swamp boats. Yeah, it's bad.
S: Just watch out for shit like that, is all I'm saying. Just the fact that there's something that can get hotter than the sun and it shoots stuff… I mean, that's cause for concern, I think. Ok, as you know, I did some product testing this week.
P: That's right.
S: I tested Tava Water, which is a new zero calorie sparkling water fruit flavored drink from Pepsi. It tasted like cancer. So let's move on.
P: Duly noted. Tava Water tastes like cancer. I'm sure that's going to be their upcoming slogan.
S: The vegetable orchestra in Vienna, did we talk about that? Instead of guitars and drums, the orchestra plays the cuke-o-phones, the carrot-flutes, the pumpkin basses, the leek violins, and other freshly made instruments.
P: This is further proof that the Germans are only slightly less crazy than the Japanese, and only slightly more crazy than people from Florida.
S: It is pretty crazy, and we've got a little Vegetable Orchestra to play for you. So listen to this, and we'll come right back with our opinions. (pretend you're hearing squishy vegetables)
S: So what did you think of that, Paul?
P: It sounded delicious. I can't believe those sounds were coming from vegetables.
S: Parsley and turnips. And eggplant cymbals. Vegetableorchestra.org if you want more information, but honestly, what we gave you there, that seems like plenty. But just in case. Also, we've got mini-nuclear reactors now. They build them under your house and they can power one city block. They say they probably won't melt down. Says here it's unlikely.
P: I like that they've got the odds of probability mapped out.
S: The odds are, they won't melt down, but if you get one of these mini-reactors put in under your house, you probably shouldn't bury your pets under the floorboards because the radiation will get to them, and then they'll come back. You've seen Pet Semetery, you know what happens next.
P: Or, to tie it into what we were talking about earlier, we've watched enough Empire and New World pictures to know that radiation and corpses means the living dead and mutations, and the only thing that's going to stop that is…a death ray.
S: Exactly. In France, they're building UFOS with stun guns on them for crowd control purposes.
P: I love the fact that the next logical step for crowd control is not more effective police training, but flying saucers.
S: It's like dinosaurs with missile launchers. Same kind of concept.
P: Exactly. Why go with anything realistic?
S: What else? Oh, there's a red Hulk.

P: At first I thought you meant for real.
S: No. In the comics. If you're the nerdy type, you probably want to check that out. The green one was plenty for me, frankly. Anyway, that's if for kick ass news. We're going to come back with some movie news and some more junk, but first, here's Ballinjack.

Listen: Ballinjack - Trouble

S: Ok, excellent, we're back, and I've got some movie news. I think you're going to breathe easier when I tell you this, Paul. Corey Haim is back in Lost Boys 2.

P: You know, what's funny is that I was just watching the first Lost Boys on TV the other day. It was on cable.
S: Oh yeah, Stacey was watching it as well. I was in here working, and what I thought was, it's a very loud movie.
P: It's very loud, and it's very gay. Like, there's that scene where Corey Haim is taking a bubblebath. Have you ever taken a bubblebath in your life?
S: As a child, sure. But not as an adult.
P: Right. So what's going on there? And there's just a lot of stuff in there. Corey Haim wears pajamas that look suspiciously like girls pajamas. Joel Shumacher, the director, is a very openly gay individual.
S: Wow, is that right?
P: Very gay. Now, in no way am I saying that's a bad thing, I'm just pointing it out. He's the guy that courted controversy when he made that Batman movie with George Clooney, and Batman's suit had nipples.
S: Now that I think about it, I was always sorta uncomfortable with the scene where they have the band playing, And the big muscle guy was playing the sax with his shirt off.

P: That guy used to play in Tina Turner's band. I think he's married to her now.
S: Really? Wow. I just remember thinking something was off with that scene. Made me feel uneasy.
P: There's a lot to be uneasy about with that movie.
S: But of course, the long-awaited Lost Boys 2, which is some bullshit about surfing vampires, there's been a lot of talk about it, because it was going to reunite the two Coreys. They're shooting it in Vancouver, I think, and Corey Haim was  suddenly out because of some hassle about his passport. He couldn't get into Canada to film, which is weird, because isn't he Canadian?
P: Wait, there making a surfing move in Vancouver? You can surf there?
S: Where else would you shoot a surf movie in Canada? You can't do it on the east coast, it's freezing.
P: I didn't even know Vancouver was near water.
S: Jesus, what are we talking about?
P: Anyway, isn't it cold on the west coast of Canada, too? It's near Portland, right? Portland is cold.
S: It's gotta  be warm sometimes.
P: We know Canadians, we should ask them.
S: The important thing in all of this is not geography, Paul, its Corey Haim's career.
P: Clearly, that's the bottom line here.
S: Did you watch the Two Coreys show?
P: I did not, but I did see the scene where Corey Feldman tells a teary Corey Haim that they're not going to be in Lost Boys 2.
S: Yeah? Well he is, so fuck you, Corey Feldman.
P: I heard that show was faked.
S: It had to be, because Corey Feldman's house was too nice to actually be his.
P: Yeah, it was probably a rental.
S: I did enjoy Corey Haim's spunk throughout the process.
P: Did you really just say that phrase?
S: Oh, right. Yeah, so I was bummed out when I heard he wasn't gonna do it because his heart was obviously broken over this thing. So there' s gonna be a Lost Boys 2, and he's gonna be in it, and it's gonna be great.
P: Is that an early prediction?
S: Yeah. It's gonna be fantastic and Corey Haim is gonna shoot right back to the top.
P: Cool. That's where he belongs.
S: Now, Ellen Page and Diablo Cody are teaming up again to make a horror film about an killer emo band.
P: From the heights of excitement over Lost Boys 2 to the depths of depression over this.
S: You saw Juno, right?
P: Yeah. I know we had some problems with Hard Candy, but I think Ellen Page is a good actress. She's good in Juno too, people just keeping making her say stuff that's a lot smarter than what her characters are supposed to be. But anyway, I'm just not interested in a movie about a killer emo band. That's not the way to go. That's like Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
S: exactly, it's like the heavy metal horror cycle of the 80's. Black Roses and Rock N Roll Nightmare, and whatnot.
P: They've already started it with these Punk Rock Holocaust movies, which are just terrible.

S: Right. Oh hey, Melissa George is working on a new movie. It's called Triangle. Here's the plot: "The story revolves around the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic ocean, who, when struck with mysterious weather conditions…" What does that mean? Mysterious weather conditions?
P: It's snowing when the sun is out?
S: Who knows. "So they jump to another ship…" There's another ship they can jump to? What is going on in this story?
P: What kind of ship? A rowboat?
S: "They encounter even greater havoc on the high seas. Melissa George plays a woman with a mental disorder who recounts the harrowing experience through her three personalities."  Shooting begins later this year in Australia, which at least is good for her, since that's where she's from.
P: She can probably go home after work. The only thing that has to considered is, will she wear a better bathing suit than the one she wore in Turistas?

S: I guess we'll find out. 30 Days of Night, the Amityville Horror remake, Turistas, what else have you seen her in?
P: I saw her in that cheerleader movie, Sugar and Spice, where she did a very passable American accent. And she was in that movie Dark City, which came out ages ago. She's naked in that one.
S: Man, I love cheerleader movies. They're the best, aren't they?
P: There are very few things in life better.
S: Whether mainstream or X-rated, doesn't matter. They're all sorta x-rated, even the PG-rated ones.
P: I think that's our most declarative statement of the day. You know, I think Melissa George was in the Australian Playboy.
S: I think you're right. That reminds me. The other day I was on Ebay, and there's this dude on there selling a Pam Grier poster for $1000. It's 16x30, which is quite small. It obviously came from the centerfold of a magazine. It's wrinkled and water-stained, and he's selling it for a thousand dollars. It's obviously not worth it, but it is an awesome poster.

P: It's a pretty amazing photo.
S: So I was trying to figure out what magazine it came from, so I could just find it buy a copy for myself. So I posited the question to the folks at DVD Maniacs, which is a forum I frequent, and they suggested it was from a magazine called Players, from the 70's. So I'm gonna look that up, see if I can rustle up a copy. You ever read this Players magazine? It sounds like my kinda magazine.
P: I am not familiar with it. I have a goodly collection of 70's adult mags, but I have seen that one. I think it was for the urban market, of which I am not a member.
S: In fact, in the 70's, you lived in the suburbs, right?
P: That's true.
S: So you were totally out of the market then.
P: I was in the suburban market, which sounds inferior.
S: Right, but now you're in the urban market, aren't you?
P: Well, I'm in Hollywood, which is an urban market. It's super urban.
S: Well, now you can read Players with authority.
P: If I see a copy of Players, I'm grabbing it, because I'm part of that demographic now.
S: Alright, we're going to take a little break, and in appreciation of Melissa George and her yacht movie, we're gonna play some yacht rock. And then we'll be back with more stuff.
(I played Dr Hook here. Play whatever you think is appropriate.)
S: Ok Paul, we're back. Do you feel more mellow now?
P: I've got a peaceful easy feeling.
S: Ok, I've got some other stuff to tell you. Oh, hey, I fired up the Blu-ray.
P: Oh yeah. You mentioned some frustrations getting that.
S: It is very frustrating buying a Blu-ray player, but I don't even wanna get into that. I did procure one, finally, and we bought a copy of Live Free or Die Hard to test it out. I can tell you that the resolution was beautiful and the sound was terrifying. It was rattling the house. But the extras were all in standard def, which look like a grainy VHS tape in comparison, and it takes like 3 minutes to load a Blu-ray disc on there. Also, if you look at the release schedule for Bluray, it's pathetic. So, ultimately, it's really nice resolution but there's so few Bluray discs for you watch, that it's really senseless to buy one at this point. I mean, if you're just going to throw $400 out the window, then buy it. But if you can buy something cooler, like a Deep Throat pinball machine or something…

P: This is a very good lesson in economics that I hope our younger listeners are paying attention to.
S: In fact, if there's somebody out there with a Deep Throat pinball machine, drop me a line and we'll trade.
P: I love it, I just don't know where you'd put that thing, you're place is pretty small.
S: I'd get rid of stuff to fit it. You know there are two movies that feature the Deep Throat pinball machine? They were both low-budget horror movies from the 80's.
P: Really? Cool.
S: One of 'em involved a dog. I don't think it was Devil Dog the Hound from Hell, though. But it was similar.
P: Was it Zoltan, the Hound from Hell?
S: Was there one called Mongrel?
P: Yeah. The Pack, too.
S: Just watch all four of those movies. The Deep Throat pinball machine is in one of them. You'll see it. It'll blow your fuckin' mind. (note: it's Mongrel and Future Kill)
P: Ok.
S: Before I get to my movie review, I wanted to mention the two shorts we saw. Well, you saw one of 'em.
P: I saw Spider on your recommendation. I didn't see the other one.
S: Spider and I Love Sarah Jane are both short films that were shown at last year's Sundance Film festival. Apparently they have a shorts series, and these two were in the "On the Edge" category. One of them, Spider, is available on Netflix. If you have Netflix, you can watch stuff instantly. Not too many people seem to use this feature, but it's really cool, you can watch all this stuff on your computer for free. I think they give you 17 hours worth for free every month.
P: I think the reason nobody's using it is because most of the films are lousy.
S: It's getting better. They've got more stuff on their all the time. Anyway, Spider you can watch on there. I Love Sarah Jane is only available on I Tunes. It costs $1.99, but it's totally worth it. I mean, what else are you going to spend your next $1.99 on?
P: There's nothing you can buy for $1.99 that's gonna match the enjoyment you get out of that film.
S: Right. So Spider takes place in Australia. It's got this guy fighting with his girlfriend in the car. He's kind of a douchebag, and he makes a fatal flaw in his attempt at an apology. Spider has one of the most amazing shock scenes I've ever seen.
P: My jaw literally hit the floor.
S: Now, I Love Sarah Jane is a post-apocalyptic short film that takes place in some rundown Australian suburb. The parents are all dead, the kids are running the neighborhood hunting zombies. This kid has a crush on Sarah Jane because she's the most kick-ass chick in town.
P: Awesome.
S: Great stuff, and it turns out, everybody's related. Nash Edgerton, the guy who made Spider, was the stunt coordinator on I Love Sarah Jane. He's done a bunch of shorts and apparently he's a stuntman. So he falls down stairs in Australian movies to pay for his shorts. He's also the douchebag in the Spider. And Spencer Susser, who directed I Love Sarah Jane, was a cameraman on Spider. So, you know, it's one big happy family. Susser's mostly made music videos. He did one for that gross porn dude, the one who wears the fishnet shirts.
P: Matt Zane. I saw his band at an "adult industry" party once.
S: Really? What was the occasion?
P: I think it was his birthday, actually. Anyway, what I remember from that was, I was introduced to somebody like this – she was an up and coming starlet, and the dude introduced us, he was a director, says "Hey, this is Nancy so-and-so, she just shot her first scene. She likes to eat her own puke."
S: Wow.
P: So I said, "Oh. Well, how nice for you." She had an appropriately queasy look on her face. What do you say to that? What's the appropriate response?
S: There's nothing appropriate about any of that.
P: Other than to run away screaming.
S: So yeah, the girl that played Sarah Jane, Mia…Jesus…Wasikowska…was also in that Australian alligator movie, Rogue.
P: I didn't see that one. I didn't know they made an Australian alligator movie. Wouldn't it be a crocodile movie? I think they have crocodiles there.
S: I don't really know the difference.
P: One of them has a longer snout.
S: Ok, fair enough. So also, she did a movie in 2006 called Suburban Mayhem about a homicidal teenage chick, and it looks awesome. I'm gonna check it out.
P: Right on.

S: So, the thing is, Spider ended with this song by Ben Lee, although he did not sing it, Ione Skye did. And you didn't like the way that turned out.
P: No. I mean, here was this exciting, violent movie, and it ends with this dull, folk-rock bullshit. It just took me out of the picture.
S: Well, I found out that Ione Skye is actually engaged to Ben Lee.
P: Really? I think he's like ten years younger than her.
S: Who cares? She's Ione Skye, damn it.
P: You've got a point.
S: I saw Say Anything not too long ago, and I gotta say, when she breaks up with Lloyd Dobler, it kinda broke me up a little.
P: Got to you, huh?
S: Yeah. She was perfect for that role because she's exactly the kind of girl a younger guy could get really obsessed with.

P: I think a lot of people have. Clearly Ben Lee, a younger guy, did.
S: You know, when she was younger, she dated the Red Hot Chili Peppers dude.
P: That's right.
S: This Anthony Keidis character. I haven't read his book, but apparently there's a topless picture of her in there. Topless and 16.
P: That's reason enough to run out to your local library. I believe she's topless in this English movie called the Rachel Papers, too.
S: Everybody loves Ione Skye. In fact, there's this band from Baltimore called Hollywood, and they have a song about Ione Skye. You wanna hear it?
P: Let's do it.
Go here to hear it!
S: What'd you think of that?
P: That was moving.
S: I think there's another Ione Skye song by some French band, too. She serves as a muse to many people. You know there's a Kelli Maroney song, too?
P: Really?
S: There's two versions. One by some German punk band, and then a country version.
P: Are you pulling my leg?
S: No. The song actually got her out of retirement. She gave up acting until dudes started writing songs about her.
P: That's incredible.
S: It's a whole subgenre, bands that write songs about cult actresses.
P: It bears further investigation on a future podcast.
S: So listen to this. Jim Ether, who's a frequent guest on our podcast, started his own podcast. I listened to the first two episodes.
P: You gave me a very interesting preview of that.
S: In the first one, he got drunk and told you all about his life.
P: Which included some very disturbing information.
S: Yeah, at one point, he was working at a record store in Braintree or someplace. So he was like 18, and he had this male stalker that would come by, this older fella, who would proposition him. One day he came buy and asked him to come back to his hotel room and wear tight clothes and take photographs.
P: That's the kind of information other podcasters are afraid to give out.
S: Right. And he gives it away freely. In the second episode, he was actually over here. He tried to interview me.
P: How did it go?
S: I don't know. It didn't go good. You can hear it as his website. Pretty good stuff so far. Anyway, so, the movie I saw. Diary of the Dead.
P: It's been getting a lot of press. There's a big story on George Romero in the New York Times. Apparently he moved from Pittsburgh to Toronto.
S: I'll be damned.
P: This is his fifth dead film.
S: We went to see this last weekend, and I gotta say, I did not like this Diary of the Dead. (see my review)
P: Well, listen, I'll watch a bad George Romero movie over 99% of the shit out there.
S: Oh yeah? Ever seen Bruiser?
P: Oof. Well…
S: So I dunno, I wanted to have fun, but I mean, it even had a boozy professor. Boozy professors went out in 1955. I feel bad about it, I just didn't like it.
P: It's a free country. And anyway, it's gotten some pretty good reviews, definitely better reviews than Land of the Dead, a movie I really wanted to like, but didn't. That's the thing with these 60's and 70's horror guys, like Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven, they never jumped into the mainstream like David Cronenberg, so they just have to try and repeat past successes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.... 
*NOTE* My hands are getting tired now, so I'm just gonna tell you what else we covered here:
Spiral, the movie. Paul liked it, I thought it was sorta ponderous, and the double-twist is overkill.

Elisha Cuthbert. I found her colostomy bag scene in "He Was a Quiet Man" quite disturbing. Paul didn't see it. Apparently she's been canoodling with Paris Hilton. We decide one of them must be a the 'real' lesbian, but don't care enough to figure out which one.
Blog Talk Radio. It's this insane site I found where they give you your own call-in radio show, with a phone number and everything, for free. You can guess the chaos that ensues. I talked about the various UFO loonies and sexual deviants shows I sampled. It was pretty funny. But just go there and discover the madness yourself.
Headcase and Free Radio. Two TV shows we like. But what are we, the TV guide?
Ugly Things magazine.  There's a new issue. Its over 200 pages long. There's an awesome Rob Tyner interview from 1988 inside. Read Ugly Things if you dig boss sounds.
Ballinjack. Late 60's Seattle band. I was planning on doing a story on them for Classic Rock, but it looks pretty dire because most of them are dead, the guitar player is in a coma, and the singer is on the run from nefarious forces all the time. It'd probably be the greatest story ever told, but might be, you know, untellable.
Sorcery. I wanna do a Sorcery story. Stunt Rock and the whole bit. But the drummer, who I was talking to, went MIA. Hopefully not another coma situation. Wizard rock!

Disco compilations from the 70's. I like the covers. They always had hot black chicks in weird circumstances, like in hot pants on a fire engine, or like with a trident under water. Paul pointed out that they ran out of the obvious poses, in the actual disco, with the first wave of comps, and had to get inventive from there.
Rude Ray Moore's jokes.  Their premises never make any sense. Like this one:
"Two babies, a boy and a girl, are in the nursery together. Suddenly, the girl baby starts yelling for the nurse. 'Nurse! Nurse! I am being raped by this baby boy!' The baby boy says 'Bitch, you just rolled over on yo' pacifier."
Bloodsucking Babes from Burbank.

New movie from my friend Kirk Bowman. I mentioned how it made me realize how much I like watching girls run around in their underwear. Paul said "Yeah. You and every other dude alive." He's got a point. The movie is bitching.
The all bubblegum podcast. We're going to do one soon. And we're going to get all hopped up on Cap'n Crunch first. We might even get the dude who wrote the Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth book on it. Paul sorta knows him. And he's not in a coma or anything.
Sleazegrinder's VHS Theater. It's an upcoming new feature on Sleazegrinder.com that's already spiraling out of control. "We should always aspire to spiraling out of control" says Paul. Exactly.

And that's it. Finished. It took 7 hours to get this all down, and I'm not sure it was worth it. Maybe you got a few laughs. Anyway, I'm going back to an audio podcast next week, for sure. I'll go buy a four track recorder and hire an engineer if I have to, because this was nuts. By the way, looks like I may be hosting the Classic Rock Magazine podcast soon. That'll be intense.

Anyway, I hope this was a good blog entry. Now that I've returned, maybe I'll be semi-regular about it. Come visit Sleazegrinder.com and please read Classic Rock magazine because it's awesome and also Metal Hammer and Total Film because they are awesome in different, but equally compelling ways. And drop me a line sometime. I miss you sometimes.

Later, gator.
Ken

7:55 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

How my summer shook out.
Current mood: quixotic

So, I just got back from seeing this new movie, Right At Your Door. I'm back-tracking, it's been a while since I've blogged. Anyway, it stars Rory Cochrane (stoner dude from Dazed and Confused) and Mary McCormack (Howard Stern's wife in Private Parts). I should note that I went to see this movie at 10pm on a Tuesday night, which, it turns out, is a pretty sweet time to go to the movies. I mean, you've got the place to yourself. I have actually been meaning to catch a matinee, but I never get up on time. Which is embarrassing, seeing as matinees are at, what, noon? But anyway, he's a stay-at-home musician, and she has some fancy job in downtown Los Angeles. Exchange "musician" for "writer" and LA for Boston, and you've got me and Stacey's set-up exactly. So, she splits for work, he's sitting around in his pajamas brushing his teeth at 11am, when all of  a sudden, dude on the radio says that a bunch of dirty bombs have gone off in downtown LA. Yikes! He can't get her on the phone, of course, so he hops in his car and tries to…I dunno what, drive to the fuckin' bomb site and look for her. The cops send him home, he's listening to the radio, which now tells him there's deadly ash heading his way, and he needs to cover his house in plastic and duct tape. Remember when they actually told us that bullshit? So, he does it. A day later, his wife comes home, covered in ash and hacking up her lungs. She's infected. He doesn't want to let her in. What the hell do they do now?

So that's the premise. And if you think the premise is a bummer, you won't fuckin' believe the ending. This is some serious slash-your-wrist cinema. Stacey would have killed me if I dragged her to it. Still, the acting was tremendous, the intensity was paint-peeling, and it was all so horribly plausible that it really shakes you to the core.

Is that a recommendation? Hard to say. I really just went because I like looking at Mary McCormack, I didn't know I was gonna get mind-raped.

C'mon, Mary. Clean up a little.

So that was tonight.

Last Saturday, we went to see Stereo Total, our favorite French/German pop band. You know, they do that song "Holiday Inn", i.e. "Let's go to the Holiday Inn, and I will show you something." The band that opened up was called Les Sans Cullottes, and they were awesome. They had this hip dude in shades and a smoking jacket up front at two chicks in fishnets on either side of him. They said they were from Paris and played a buncha garage-y glam-boogie songs like "Allo Allo" in French. Well, it turns out they are actually from New York and only pretend to be French, which is very fuckin' weird, but I still had a great time, so I don't really care.

Les Sans Cullottes.

Then, this band from Austin called the Octopus Project played. It was three dudes in white shirts and ties and this skinny girl with a 1920's flip 'do, a cocktail dress, and the most heartbreaking smile you ever saw. They played an instrumental goulash with xylophone and Moog and Theremin. I got kinda bored by it after a while,  but they seemed so genuinely nice I wanted to buy them all a spaghetti dinner.

Octopus Project.

Right, and then Stereo Total played. They're a duo – the dude is named Brezel, and the girl is Françoise Cactus. Now, if you listen to them, Fran has this unbearably cute voice. She sounds like one of those high-glamour Ye Ye girls from the 60's. But she's actually hilariously frumpy. A total thrift store disaster. This does nothing to detract from how cool this band is, however. They played all their hits, like "I Hate the Discoteque", and I Love You, Oh No!" and their cover of Salt N' Pepa's "Push It" and they even brought a bunch of people on stage to dance with them a couple times. It was a lot of fun. If they blow through your town, don't miss 'em.

Stereo Total! Photo by Cabine.

The night before that, we saw The King of Kong, this new documentaty about warring Donkey Kong champs. It was amazing. I mean, you sorta kept pulling back and going, "I  can't believe people are wasting their lives with this nonsense", but at the same time, it was totally compelling. You really want the challanger, Steve, to win this dumb thing because the current champ, Billy, is such a douchebag. I am willing to go so far as to say that you will laugh AND cry while watching this film. It's pretty goddamn fantastic.

Donkey Kong champ Billy Mitchell. Kind of a jerk. Can you tell?

Oh, did I mention the car? Since we last spoke, the Mazda 3 started having some problem, where it was popping when I put it into gear. Me, I think it's the tires, so I take it to a tire place. They say "Of course, it's the tires!" and we buy $300 worth of new tires. But it is NOT the fucking tires at all, so we take it to the dealer, who tells us some bullshit about the transmission. So they give us a rental car so they can fix it. Stay with me, because the next part is going to break your heart. So we take home the rental, and the first night, some fucker rams into it while it's parked out front, scratching it up. They leave a note saying they're sorrry, but the number they leave is, of course, fake. We end up having to pay $250 to fix it. We get our own car back, and a week later, somebody dents our fuckin' bumper, again, while it's parked out front. Even with our insurance, it's gonna cost us $500. And then, a week or so later, someone else does it to us AGAIN, smashing two doors. NOBODY owns up to hitting our car, three times. Now it's gonna cost $1000, plus the $250 from the rental. And there's NOTHING we can do about it. How sick is this? This is the result of 7 years of the Bush administration, I swear to god it is. With a goverrnment as lawless are ours, society is merely following suit. People just do whatever they want. It's really crazy.Guys are stealing my name and using it for whatever they want ( I don't wanna get into it)… I even have dudes writing me threatening emails because they don't like what I wrote about their band. (see the Sleazegrinder message board) Like it's ok to threaten people. I'm telling you, we gotta turn this all around, or life is gonna get real ugly.

Speaking of which, last Monday, I went to the Ozzfest to interview Lamb of God, and I am being very charitable by saying they were not the friendliest band ever. Now, I have interviewed dudes that have been full-on rock stars for 30 years, and they are gracious enough to answer simple questions withot sneering or rolling their eyes. Questions that they've been answering over and over for all these years. I'm not saying Lamb of God need to be as nice as, say, Alice Cooper or Dee Snider, but there's a reason those guys are still around after all these years. So that totally left a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, the results will be the cover story for an upcoming issue of Metal Hammer.  I think. So look out for that. Maybe.

Lamb of God. Not my best friends.

Ah, but right after that debacle I got into my bashed-up car and sped outta Ozzfest like a bat out of hell, because we had tickets to see Meatloaf! The Loaf was huge back in the 70's – literally and figuratively – and I clearly remember seeing him on televeusion back them, dressed in ruffled shirts and suit jackets, covered in sweat and bellowing like a werewolf opera singer. Back then he'd rock so hard that he'd pass out right on stage and they'd have to revive him with oxygen. Awesome. So, we heard he was rolling through town. Stacey and I have never seen him live, and I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to see him do "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" in the flesh.

The crowd was alot older than us, unless we are older than we think. Most of 'em looked middle-aged, but they were still total pains in the asses, because whole rows of the fuckers would stand up during songs they liked, making it impossible for the people behind them to see Mr. Loaf in action. What's that all about? I paid $60 for a seat. I wanna get $60 worth of sitting out of it. Anyway, besides that, the show was great. He did a little too much obscure material (i.e., anything not on Bat Out of Hell), but whatever. He had two hot chicks on stage, one blonde, one brunette, and he played Paradise By the Dashboard Light for like, an hour. Stupendous. Dude, I heart Meatloaf, big time. By the way, so, two tix at $60 a pop, two t-shirts at $35 a pop, and $17 to park. I don't even want to know what all that adds up to. That motherfucker better work himself into an asthma attack if I'm shelling out all that dough.

Mr. Loaf and the hot brunette.

So, the week before, or after, I forget, we went to Atlantic City to see Don Rickles. Don is a legend, of course. Used to seem him all the time on talk shows in the 70's, bustin' on folks. Recently I bought a bunch of his old albums, and found them to be laugh-out-loud funny, even the ones from the 60's when I had no idea who he was talking about. So I decided it was imperative that we see him, especially since he's 81 now. That's…that's up there, you know? So we drove down there. W got a room at the Tropicana, which is a gigantic hotel. I mean, the lobby looks like downtown Calcutta, there's so many people going in and out. Before the show, we met with some of Stacey's old college friends, who live in Philly, which is apparently close to New Jersey. We went to the buffet at Bally's hotel, which was ok. I got prime rib, because, well, it's a buffet, and halfway through, starting choking on a big chunk of it. I signalled to Stacey that I was choking, and it turns out, she does not know the Heimlich. So she starts freaking and I don't think her friends get that I'm actually choking, and nobody in the restaurant seems to give a fuck, because NO ONE is helping me. This is the same attitude that allows people to smash into your car and split. Now, I could still breathe through my nose, so I probably was not going to die, but it was still pretty fuckin' scary. Eventually, the errant prime rib dislodged itself from my throat, and I sheepishly had some dessert. A week or so later I was having lunch with a couple writer friends of mine from the Boston Pheonix, and they were ruminating on how cool it woulda been if that's the way I really did go: "Rock journalist Sleazegrinder dies choking to death on Prime Rib in Atlantic City." Hell, I'd like to write that obit myself, it IS pretty classy.

Anyway, after that scary dinner we saw Don. Well, first some dude came out and did 40 minutes of Frank Sinatra songs, which nearly put me to sleep, but then Don came on, and it was fantastic. He actually passed right by us, because he was doing this bit where he gets lost on his way to the stage. He looked pretty frail going up there, but once he got the mic in his hand, he was on fire. He basically just picked on everybody for an hour. We were in the 4^th row, so I knew I'd catch some shrapnel at some point, and I did. He looked at me and said, "Jews, look out for that guy in the beard. He looks like a German U-Boat commander." I don't know what that means, but it was funny.

Mr. Warmth, you are the balls.

We stayed for a night after the show, and spent the entire day at the beach. The hotel was right there on the boardwalk. The beach was the best I've ever been to, with surprisingly warm water and seriously aggressive waves. I loved it. I am totally looking forward to going back to AC next year. No prime rib next time, though.

Right, so sometime before that, I went to Portland, Maine, to do a story on a band called Between the Buried and Me. I have not much to say about that trip except that I had the worst Chinese food of my life in Portland, and that, since there was a ton of awful metalcore bands opening up for BTBAM, I sat in the car and watched a bootleg of "I Know Who Killed Me" on my I-Pod until they went on. Have you seen this movie? It may, seriously, be one of the worst movies ever made. It was unbelievable. I don't have the time or space here to dissect it, but honestly, avoid this thing at all costs. By the way, this was the least of this movie's problems, but Lyndsey Lohan was a stripper in it, but she did not take off any clothes. This is an alarming new trend in movies – roles that require nudity being portrayed by actresses that don't do nudity. Same thing in Knocked Up – Katherine Weigl has two sex scenes, wherein she wears a bra. In one of them, she's actually complaining about her pregnant tits swinging around too much, and she's got them trapped in a bra. That's bogus, yo. Women don't like wearing bras, they can't wait to take them off. They certainly don't wanna wear them during sex. Go on, ask one.And yeah, I know, you're saying that I just want to see them naked.  But it's more than cheap thrills at stake here. It's the integrtiy of cinema, goddamnit.

Whoa. Ok, so that's pretty hot anyway, but it's still a cop-out.

So anyway. Before that, I went to Chicago to hang out with Amon Amarth for another Metal Hammer story. Chicago is really big, did you know that? Huge. And the side of town the show was at – I forget what it was called now – was amazingly seedy. You cannot find a neighboorhood this threatening anywhere in Boston. So that was cool. Amon were awesome to hang out with, a bunch of giant, friendly, drunken Swedes. I hung out with them for a whole day and was actually sorta bummed when I had to split. Well, not too bummed, who wants to sleep on a bus and wake up in Minneapolis? Not me. Anyway, cool guys.

Amon Amarth. More fun than they look.

Oh Christ, before that, I went to Oklahoma for Classic Rock magazine. Why? Rocklahoma, that's why. I already wrote 6,000 words about it for the mag, so I don't wanna get into it too much here, but here's the basic set-up. It's me and a photographer in an RV backstage in who-the-fuck-knows-where, Oklahoma, covering a 3 day outdoor glam metal festival that featured Poison, Twisted Sister, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Dokken, Vince Neil, Skid Row, Winger, White Lion, Enuff Z'Nuff, Faster Pussycat, LA Guns, Britny Fox, Firehouse, Warrant, Jackyl, Great White, Slaughter, Queensryche, and so on. And it was like 90 degrees everyday. I mean, YOU imagine what that's like. I dunno, the first night I was up for 40 hours straight, sitting on Bobby Dall's tour bus while he's getting his hair done, discussing where the Bullet Boys went wrong. Next afternoon I'm on stage while Skid Row play for 20,000 people and Rachel Bolan begs somebody to bring him oxygen before he dies standing. It was one of the more memorable weekends of my life, I'll tell you that much.

I hung out with these dudes.

Hmm. Before that, I went to Memphis to hang out with Darkest Hour. That was cool. I did a podcast about that trip, check it out, if you wanna.

Anyway, that's how my Summer went. In between all that stuff, we went to the beach a lot, and we went to a ton of movies, including:

1408…hmm. Let's say a B. Not so scary, but fun.

Sicko  - Pretty amazing. Made me cry a few times.Some of it might be bullshit, though.

Crazy Love – jaw-dropping doc about this dude who threw acid in this chick's face back in the 50's, blinding her…and after he got out of prison for it, she married him.

Live Free or Die Hard – Awesome. That's all.

Sunshine – brooding sci-fi stuff. Implausible, but compelling.

Talk to Me – The second half drags a little, but very close to best film of the year.

Simpons Movie – Was pretty funny.

Hot Rod – Was sorta funny. Here and there.

Rocket Science – Funny, albeit a little emo for my tastes. Stacey absolutely loved it. It did have one hilarious line: "There's a cello in your house now." If you saw it, believe me, you'd be cracking up now.

Death at the Funeral – British black comedy. By jove, it was uproarious! Also, it had Daisy Donovan in it. I LOVE Daisy Donovan.

Superbad – instant teen comedy classic.

 I love you Daisy. Not as much as Stacey of course, but, you know, in the same ballpark.

I'm sure there's other stuff I forgot to mention, but that seems like plenty. Basically, I quit the counseling gig and started writing full-time. Relying on my wits to survive. So far, so good. I have finally gotten the hang of being home by myself all day, too. I have combated this problem by writing until 6 in the morning and then sleeping most of the day away. By the time I finish eating breakfast at like 3pm, it's nearly time to pick up Stacey from work. So I hardly have time to be lonely.

And yes, I realize how lucky I am. Believe me, I paid the dues. Oh, the fuckin' dues I've paid.

So that's it. Stay beautiful. And please, don't smash into my car.

Ken

Currently listening : Sing Sing Death House By The Distillers Release date: 12 February, 2002

12:17 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Best Summer Ever, Part 2
Category: Life

Hi. I only slept a couple hours last night and now it's midnight already, but what happened was, I have this inhaler I'm supposed to take a couple puffs from before I go running at the gym. I never do. But every once in awhile I see it poking out of the gym bag, and suddenly it seems like a good idea. Tonight I noticed it while Stacey and I were freaking out to this loony Japanese movie called Meatball Machine. I took a couple hits because it's seriously humid out. I forgot that said inhaler makes me totally panicky for like 10 hours straight, which is why I never use it. So now I won't be able to sleep until dawn, at least, so why not fritter away the hours blogging? Why not, indeed, sir.

So what's been happening the last couple months? Life, baby. Life's been happening. I had this crazy idea that I actually wanted to start working full time again..I have been working part time as a mental health counselor, and I suddenly got it in my head that I wanted to run a halfway house again. I actually had a meeting with my old program director about it and everything. He, of course, told me it would be foolish to take the position since I'd have to work 70 hours a week for a $25,000 annual salary, and I already told him that on a good day I can make $1,000 in like, two hours free-lancing.

I am glad he has more sense than I do. However, it is good to know that if the whole sleazy rock journalism thing goes to hell, I have an over-worked, under-paid position waiting for me.

I AM pretty good at that job, though. And that feels good. Too bad nobody gives a fuck about the mentally ill and they pay mental health workers slave wages. I mean, is rock journalism more important than teaching Schizophrenics how to ride the number 1 bus without totally freaking