This Weekend

The 13th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival starts tomorrow night at the Castro Theatre. I'll be there, and hopefully capable of collecting my thoughts about another fascinating trip to the way-back machine a few days from now.

Thrill-O-Tronic Film Show This Saturday

The producers of the most excellent Thrillville series present The Thrill-O-Tronic Film Show, a Saturday matinee spotlighting wild and crazy content by 'found footage mad scientists' Sci Fi Bob and Psychotronic Paul from the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, on July 5 at the Cerrito Speakeasy Theatre.

We will serve up a steaming slice of Psychotronix with high-fat whipped cream blasted from a nifty aerosol can - and a side of Kitschy Americana. After screening way too many miscellaneous film clips and 1950's commercials for my own good, I've concluded that Kitschy Americana is generally used to sell the following: cigarettes, cars, beer and political ideologies.

What: Thrill-O-Tronic Film Show
When: Saturday July 5 at 2:00 p.m.
Where: The Cerrito Speakeasy Theatre
10070 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA
Who: Thrillville's 'hosts with the most', Will The Thrill and Monica The Tiki Goddess. And special guests:

• Filmmaker Ernie Fosselius



• Direct from TV's Cinema Insomnia, Mr. Lobo and The Queen Of Trash
  

Broncho Billy Film Festival At Niles

The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Northern California treasure, mecca for historians, culture vultures and film geeks alike, will present The 11th Annual Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival all weekend, starting this evening.

History, particularly when it involves cross-eyed Ben Turpin falling on his butt, can be fun.

Mr. Lobo's Surreality Check

Mr. Lobo, "your horror host", wrote this excellent rant as a response to a despairing posting on the Mr. Lobo's Sleepless Knights Of Insomnia message board that decried the noxious effects of Big Media and Big $$$ on culture, and how things have gotten 1000 times worse in the past 15 years.

The major media outlets are never going to put anything ahead of money. We need to let those dinosaurs die and discover and praise those who are making entertainment for the highest rather than the lowest common denominator.

Negativity only turns people off. . . I was unhappy with what I saw on late night TV; I made my own show. There are a lot of us that are part of the solution that doing great culturally positive work that needs support to break through to the mainstream. So often I hear people say..."they don't do it like that anymore" and I want to say--"Well, I do! And a bunch of other artists and producers are, too" They don't want to see what I'm doing because it doesn't fit in with their negative rants and ravings!

Let's take the tip of one iceberg...Last Saturday's Psychotronix Film Fest--a packed house enjoyed tons of classic entertainment for all audiences provided by SciFi Bob, Psychotronic Paul, Scott Moon (publisher of Planet X magazine and the musical mastermind behind Cinema Insomnia music video "Watching TV"), Rob Emmett of KFJC's wonderful "Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack show" and soundman Austin Space.

• Ernie "Hardware Wars" Fossellius was there with his DVDs


• The Queen and I represented Cinema Insomnia


• Cult Radio A Go-Go covered the event


• Bill Devers, president of the Indy Film Co-Op and organizer of The B-Movie Celebration was there, as was. . .


• Will "The Thrill" Viharo, who does Thrillville revival shows at theaters up and down the state


• Tom Wyrsch, who made the Creature Features documentary


• KTEH programmer Ken Patterson, who brought endless British Sci-Fi and even groundbreaking Anime to Bay Area TV


• Filmmakers, musicians, and artists galore who were there who are doing good stuff right now!

We are in a B-cult underground renaissance! I'm tired of hearing everything sucks...everyone I hang out with is doing something super special!

Here with your Surreality Check, now bend over and say ahhh...Mr. Lobo

George Carlin, Standup Philosopher (1937-2008)

I loathe serving as an R.I.P. blog! This week, that most wonderful of satiric shit disturbers, George Carlin, passed away at 71.

Hope George left at least a screed or two of unpublished social criticism, as ferociously scathing as Mark Twain's last writings, behind. Until then, you can rent or - if you're fortunate enough to not have your home in foreclosure during an election year - buy the DVD box set of his standup comedy specials.

In tribute, enjoy this prime clip of George at his razor-sharp and fearless best.

Carlin was certainly among the best of, to steal a term from Mel Brooks, the "standup philosophers". For an example of pure linguistic prowess:




Last week: the greatest, coolest, sexiest female dancer in the history of movies, Cyd Charisse, shuffled off the mortal coil at 86. Here she is, kicking ass in Vincente Minnelli's 1953 film The Band Wagon. I've watched this more times than countless fanboys have seen Star Wars or Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan.


Both, fortunately for us still wandering around on this planet, left ample evidence of their artistry. . . evidence that can definitely help a person get through some of the rough spots in this earthly trip we share.

I'm toasting both of 'em tonight, baby.

Now Playing!

The Psychotronix Film Festival Returns Yet Again, Against Our Better Judgment

For over 15 years, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival has presented a film archivist jam session.



The visual music (cacophony?) draws from a wide range of oddly tuned instruments: unintentionally hilarious 1950's commercials and "educational" films, the most bizarre obscure classic cartoons, trailers from the worst movies, double-entendre packed Pre-Code goodies, the cheapest international monster movies, the campiest musical shorts, the most surreal silent movie clips and TV programs that aired once or should never have aired. We don't know what riff we'll play until the show is underway.



We'll be back with another freewheeling improvised program of questionable entertainment on Saturday, June 21.



If you are between the South Bay Area and just south of San Francisco, you can hear us jabber about the festival (A.K.A. attempt to explain something than defies rational explanation), on KFJC 89.7 FM at 6:00 p.m. this very Monday evening, June 16.

Radio personality Robert Emmett of "The Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show" hosts the festivities. Our special guests: direct from TV's Cinema Insomnia, horror host Mr. Lobo and The Queen Of Trash.

Alas, the fabled Room 5015 is slated for major remodeling shortly, so it may be a little while before our next fundraiser for KFJC. We'll give 5015, site of 35 Psychotronix Film Festivals, a fitting sendoff.



What? The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival
Where? Room 5015, Foothill College campus, Los Altos Hills, CA (El Monte exit off of Highway 280)
When? Saturday June 21, 7:00 to 11:30 PM
Why? We give away a menagerie of cheap door prizes at intermission!



While showtime is 7:00 p.m., get there early - these shows sell out.

The Next Philosopher Guru by Paul F. Etcheverry

Found scribbled on lined stationery in the back of a cab in Trenton, New Jersey, the wise words of Al Confucius Johnson, philosopher, beer drinker.

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, make a sandwich."

"I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge. I am one who is in possession of a 1971 Archie, Jughead and Veronica comic."

"Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night involving more than six tall boys of Mickey's Big Mouth."

"I hear and I forget. I see and I forget. I do and I forget. I go to the bathroom and I forget. I forget and I forget."

"If you find your place in the world, make sure there's a bathroom nearby."

"Respect yourself and others will still tell you to commit physically impossible sexual acts."

"He who exercises government by means of his virtue will not get any campaign contributions."

"He who wears his heart on his sleeve will end up with bloody shirt-sleeves and some explaining to do at the dry cleaners."

"He who feels connected to all beings must always remember to wear pants."

Good Advice by Paul F. Etcheverry

In a moment of sleep deprivation and, admittedly, bad habits-induced insecurity a couple of weeks back, I perused the Internet for 'advice'. My quick reaction: DON'T EVER DOOOOOOO THAT (in the immortal words of mid-1930's radio comic Joe Penner).

The relationship advice was the worst - and I fled the computer in complete disgust before even getting to the men's and women's magazines of the world. The gist of the online drivel was:

• "Conceal who you really are - never speak openly and candidly about anything - to get what you want."


• "Be somebody else to get what you want."


• "Dumb down - be a stupid shit to get what you want."


• "Do - or don't do - these specific things to manipulate that next person into having a mindless, drooling, brain-dead crush on you (A.K.A. play these games to get what you want)."


• "Give us your credit card number, and those of all your family members and business associates - and we'll give you the secret to attracting what you want in forty-six easy-to-digest lessons."


• "Make that person jealous to get what you want. Say you're wildly, insanely attracted to somebody else and keep rubbing it in, over and over, until you see the hurt bleeding from their eyes."


• "Become anorexic or get liposuction so you'll get what you want".


• "Break into an understaffed morgue, steal a handsome head and get it surgically attached. Or find an unattended extra-large mammal and whack its member off. . . or better yet, determine exactly where the pickled preserved penis of John Dillinger is located - and have it surgically attached, so you'll get what you want."


• "Guys, get a French maid outfit, wear it with pumps, apply Day-Glo ultramarine shadow, dance your best version of 'The Macarena' and sing 'There's No Business Like Show Business'. She'll go nuts and give you what you want."


• "Hollow out a pumpkin, carve a face resembling Nikita Khrushchev or Tor Johnson on it, put it on your head, then pull your trousers or capris down to your ankles so you don't walk very well - and get what you want."


• "Cut your losses and bail if you don't get what you want all the time."


• "Hire someone to help you cope with crushing guilt over getting what you want."

Private Snafu

For Memorial Day, here are some classic WWII propaganda-toons, starring the hapless Private Snafu. These cartoons were produced for The Army-Navy Screen Magazine by the Warner Brothers gang, joined by future children's book icons Ted "Dr. Suess" Geisel and Phil Eastman.

Burt Bacharach Day

Finally, clips from the Burt Bacharach - Elvis Costello collaboration have made it to youtube. It's a good combination: Burt's melodies and harmonies with pungent, hard-hitting lyrics by Elvis.


Costello's lyrics, for me personally, are right on; I have difficulty relating to the more sentimental (and also at times masochistic) lyrics of Hal David. Anyone who has lived through the experience of this tune, "The House Is Empty Now", can certainly relate.

Clip Of The Day: Reg Kehoe And His Marimba Queens

Watch the bass player in this Soundie - and wonder if these could be transgender marimba queens. . .

It's Trad, Dad a.k.a. Riffin' With Red Allen

Trad, dad, 1920's style, performed in the 50's by an all-star band including Kid Ory (among the first New Orleans innovators to record this music), Henry "Red" Allen, Jack Teagarden, the legendary Lil Hardin-Armstrong, Gene Krupa and more, still sounds . . . wonderful.



Since I just can't get enough with one truncated clip (hey, if you know where the rest of the Teagarden-Allen-Krupa performance is, point me to it - can't find it on YouTube or Daily Motion), here's another one: "Red" Allen's blues-drenched trumpet solo and vocal on St. James Infirmary.



OK, that's not enough. I want more! So here's some ecstatic swing. Red sings Earl Hines' Rosetta, backed by Coleman Hawkins (tenor sax), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Rex Stewart (cornet), Milt Hinton (bass) and Jo Jones (drums).

Happy Birthday, Duke Ellington

Today, we raise our half-filled glasses to Duke's six decades in music. Then we drain them listening to his music. There are so many great clips of Duke and his orchestra, I couldn't even begin to post all of them. Here's a rare one: the incomparable composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn plays with the band and solos on "Take The A Train".

We follow this with "The Hawk Talks" from 1955. Louis Bellson kicks serious derriere with a cool drum solo, giving Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich a run for their money.

The showman on the trumpet is the marvelous multi-instrumentalist Ray Nance. . . yes, the same Ray Nance who turns up playing swinging jazz violin alongside Stefane Grappelli and others.

Next up, a slice of living history: Duke and his orchestra in Symphony In Black, one of a series of artfully photographed one-reelers produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935. It features a very young Billie Holiday, singing beautifully in the role of a woman brutally scorned by an ex-lover mean enough to give Pollyanna the mood indigo blues.



And here's Sophisticated Lady featuring the great Harry Carney on baritone sax:



And now I must listen to that Ellington Uptown CD. . . Thanks for all that amazing music, Duke!

Follow The Bouncing Ball

By all means, forget your tribulations and sing along through this Fleischer Screen Song cartoon, Kitty From Kansas City, co-starring Betty Boop and Rudy Vallee.

One Great Psychotronic Fleischer Cartoon Deserves Another

Betty Boop's Museum (1932)

Ready for a cartoon starring horny statues and skeletons? Well, the skeletons are hornier in a 1934 Krazy Kat cartoon in which a gay skeleton, dancing with Napoleon, cops a feel on Nappy's rear - but this still fills the bill. One of those great inexplicable cartoon moments comes when a skeleton (with a Bluto voice) points at Betty and demands "SING!"

About that Krazy Kat cartoon. . . one of the perpetrators of that classic gag (maybe he animated it) was the great Manny Gould, a few years before contributing fabulous animation to Warner Brothers for. . . guess who, Bob Clampett!

Another Great Psychotronic Cartoon

This truly psychotronic (psychoactive?) cartoon, Betty Boop in Mask-A-Raid, epitomizes everything I love about the Fleischer Studio, circa 1930-1933.



I consider the part (at 2:43) when two "Mickey Rat" characters behind huge weird masks sing sublime gibberish right up there among the greatest moments in the history of world cinema.

Burt Bacharach Day

Here's Dionne Warwick, making the art of vocalizing look easy in a French Scopitone from 1964.

My Favorite Star Of 1930's Comedy Shorts

With the wonderful Thelma Todd, his frequent co-star in 1929-1931.



In a hilarious scene from Sons Of The Desert (1933), with my all-time favorite comedy team, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy.



Charley Chase, a.k.a. Charles Parrott, was an inspired and unique writer/director/comedian whose comedy has weathered the test of time quite well. The silent-era comedies he co-directed and wrote with Leo McCarey are certainly among the funniest ever made.










Consider the following Charley Chase storylines:

• Mighty Like A Moose - Charley and his wife, both bucktoothed and grotesquely ugly, get plastic surgery without telling each other, meet by chance and have an affair.
• Limousine Love - Charley's car runs out of gas on the way to his wedding. While he's walking to and from the gas station, the married yet nubile Mrs. Glenders falls in a mud puddle, then ducks in Charley's car to change clothes. While her clothes - all of them - are outside the car, Charley blithely jumps in and drives off!
• His Wooden Wedding - A sleazy rival for Charley's fiancee hands the affable but gullible Chase a handwritten note that says "beware - your wife to be has a wooden leg." One truly bizarre chain of events ensues.
• Whispering Whoopee- Charley needs to seal a real estate deal with three out-of-towners, so he rents a hotel suite and hires three hookers. The out-of-towners turn out to be the three stodgiest stuffed shirts imaginable.

Chase also has a certain mixture of amused aplomb and sheer outrageousness that makes him more akin to the likes of Peter Sellers and John Cleese than to his contemporaries.



Many of his best films were made with actress and comedienne Thelma Todd.



The duo were the equivalent of a comedy team in their many appearances together in 1929-1931.



I extend profound tips of the Jimmie Hatlo hat to documentary filmmaker Robert Youngson (whose work introduced me to countless comedy greats), film historians, archivists and collectors who have kept Charley Chase's memory alive all these decades after his passing.







Deserving special mention: Yair Solan, webmaster of the Charley Chase website and filmography; author/historian Leonard Maltin, for his key efforts in bringing attention to Chase's formidable comedic legacy.



Kudos, bravos and huzzahs go to Turner Classic Movies for broadcasting many superb Hal Roach Studio 2-reelers starring Chase and other great comedians.







TCM has made it possible for new generations to discover one of the great comedians and comedy creators.



Charley had a couple of theme songs in his Hal Roach films. Here's one he sang in a few of his films; it's appropriate not just to life in general, but to the offscreen lives of so many who made us laugh.





Smile when the raindrops fall, dear.
Smile til the clouds roll by.
Just remember that I love you
Though dark is the blue, blue sky.
Dark clouds will fade away, dear
Soon pass beyond recall.
So just smile at the skies
With those big smiling eyes
Just smile when the raindrops fall.

Smile When the Raindrops Fall © W.A. Quincke and Co. (1930)

Happy 100th Birthday, Bette Davis

Born 100 years ago today: the legendary Bette Davis, a silver screen tidalwave-tsunami-tornado with unpredictability, nuance, and subtlety.

Check out Bette as Margo Channing (no damn fool, that's for sure) in this clip from All About Eve:



Here are excerpts from a stellar Turner Classic
Movies documentary about the driven, versatile, creative, innovative and fearless La Bette.





Dick Cavett did a great interview with her. Enjoy these two excerpts:





Palo Alto's Stanford Theatre just kicked off a Davis retrospective, which will include 35mm archival prints of her 1930's Warner Brothers pictures. Among her co-stars: everybody from movie icons Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart to such lesser known but wonderfully over-the-top actors as Warren William.

Bette Davis was the screen acting equivalent of a big-league pitcher who could blow you away with a fastball, then throw a knee-buckling curve, devastating change-up and vicious slider. . . put them all exactly where she wanted and change speeds on all of 'em.