Not even a colossal waste of time

Finished watching Bella Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and actually it wasn’t as horrible as the first few moments indicated it was going to be. If anything it is simply drab and dull and unfunny lacking I suppose the absolute cosmic – I want to use the word grace here but that isn’t the right one. There is a ineffable something about the truly bad films – that mark them a different from the run of the mill stinkers – films could have very similar budgets and actors and story but one will simply be a dull time waster of no great import and the other leaves you stunned and overwhelmed and in a strange kind of awe.

Bella Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is not one of those films. It wanders about – featuring Jerry Lewis style clowning by Sammy Petrillo and singing by Duke Mitchell – they were tying to be a sort of 2nd banana Lewis and Martin, some eye candy via Charlita and Bella looking very old and frail as a mad scientist. It’s supposed to a be a comedy but actually the only one with any real idea of how to play this for laughs is Bella who I guess must have been grateful for the work and for a chance to play off his Dracula persona as a comedy.

But lord it’s not funny, none of it is funny – the story is about how Bella, a mad scientist living on a tropical island is jealous of Charlita’s growing love of Duke (He and Sammy arrived their by accident) as he is madly in love with Charlita himself. That being the case and he being a mad scientist he turns duke into a man in gorilla suit. It’s a pretty cheesy suit – I’ve seen it before on the much much weirder bride of the beast (written by Ed Wood but not directed by him) which I’ll do someday when living isn’t as much fun as it is now. There is a tiresome-fat-chick-chasing-Sammy subplot and some dancing, some singing (Duke’s no Dean and the songs make you wish Rock and roll had hit Hollywood sooner) and some messing about between a chimp and Sammy (who looks and sounds so much like a young Jerry Lewis that Lewis sued the film and Sammy for stealing his act.)

But it’s just dull – there is none of the jaw dropping awfulness of Plan Nine from outer space or Manos – this is just dull stuff done by pros and semi-pros. There is, I wish I could say this clearly or exactly – there is no as it were divine spark here. No pie plates over Hollywood, no bizarre unworldly dialogue, no solar powered android holding a flashlight to the solar battery on his forehead, no guy with large knees as the caretaker, no mindwarping moment of "oh my god they didn't just do that did they" that I watch these movies for. It was just dull.

And in the end there is the cop out – they use the it was only a dream ending. Which nowadays reminds me of the Cycling Tour of North Cornwall episode of Monty Python’s Flying circus. In that – don’t ask how – Mr. Pither is sitting in his cell waiting to be shot by the Russians (you’ll just have to trust me on this) then he drifts off and wakes up in lounge chair in the backyard of his home with his mother holding a glass of lemonade telling him to wake up.

Pither: Mother? (pauses to look around) Then it was all a dream.
Mother: No son. This is the dream; you’re still back in the cell.

Random Neural Firings:

Been listening obsessively (gee is that a surprise or what) to Social Distortion – The lead singer/songwriter Mike Ness over the course of about 7-8 albums has made the fuckup outlaw with a heart of gold role his own – he even ended up in prison for a while on some drug charge – I am not sure of the details. But the band’s best songs are things of hard one wisdom pain and beauty – there’s a line in one song “guys like us we ain’t got no chance – but I’m thing that keeps you and me alive”. Now I’m not Ness and was never as near the edge as Ness, I’m just a suburban Neurotic with esteem issues but still his stuff has hooked me and hooked me hard.

It’s that sense that keeps me coming back to this stuff when you’d think I’d have long outgrown it Side Note: it could be I’ve refused to grow up. That maybe true, one ex said as much – I mean over the course of my life I’ve refused to do a lot of things I was supposed to – I never really made a fuss about it I just wouldn’t do it – like listen to the music I was supposed to listen too, go to the high school prom (I remember my parents being sympathetic over that and I was – shit never liked high school anyway why bother with this gibberish – good riddance to you all. It’s not always been the best response like if you don’t pay parking tickets you end up paying a lot more. The phrase ‘you have to do this” to this day get’s my back up.

Anyway back to Social D. Again there is something in that music that raises me out of my own boring worried about layoffs existence; it gives something inside me wings. I can’t explain it any better. Sorry.

The president has been making a big show of going to the State Department, the Pentagon and other places to get their views on Iraq. Excuse me but don’t they all report to the president anyway – and what nobody can use a phone? Or knowing W’s limited patience and limited interest in anyone who is not kissing his ass fervently maybe these were all slide shows like I had as a kid were, if you were bored, you could just shut your eyes – and hope there wouldn’t be a quiz on it.

As an offshoot of the right wings love affair with the dead fascist dictator of Chile several are now saying what Iraq needs is a strong man. WTF? There was a strong man there remember? Saddam Hussein? Public enemy #1? Does this ring a bell with anybody out there? And the whole fuss over the voting? That means nothing?

The holy family on roller skates do these people have any sense of what they are saying? How crazy it sounds? I guess not. Hell they are still talking about bombing Iran – lord we enter the New Year listening to jabber of madmen.

I find it interesting in a weird/sad way that the post that got the most feedback was the one were I wrote something snarky about Neil Diamond. In re the comments I sometimes feel like I’m that old Buck Henry Saturday Night live sketch where he was a talk radio host but nobody was calling in so he tossed out more and more offensive topics until he has asking for calls on eating dead puppies and Incest. Little love little hate people – that’s all I ask.

Speaking of which – since my muse seems to fly when I’m p.o.ed – a new feature – the bands I can’t stand. .