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Saturday, July 21, 2007
Vietnam- The World Changes
THE NAM
The impact on America over Vietnam has been compared to the division that happened in our earlier Civil War.
Well, close but no cigar.
Whole states were split in those days. In the early to mid 1960's, it was probably less than 5% of the population that were against the war.
I hadn't even heard of Vietnam. If I had, I paid it no mind.
So instead of the Nam turning "brother against brother", it was pretty much 95% of the public against 5.
My parents had met in the Navy and married in South Carolina. My mother was Irish, southern, my father was Mexican. His parents had crossed over the border just to give birth to him in the states, and he repaid the country by becoming a lifer in the Navy.
This marriage was odd because in those days, marriages between different races were illegal in South Carolina. It would take years before I figured out how they pulled it off.
Watching I LOVE LUCY one day it dawned on me that the #1 show on TV when they met - was Lucy. The impact of this show was such that southern racists looked the other way- after all- everyone liked Ricky Ricardo.
The miracle of that show was that in those days it presented a mixed marriage. The show had been on the radio before it went to TV, but on the radio Lucy had a pretend white hubby.
TV can do that. Before apartheid fell in South Africa, the number one show was THE BILL COSBY SHOW presenting black people in a way white South Africans had never seen before.
TV is blamed for so many ills, we often miss the positives it has contributed to society.
My mother would divorce my dad, remarry but she would always be Navy. She actually tried to fight being booted out for being pregnant but lacked the money to mount a legal fight. She would never forgive the Navy for not having leaves for pregnancy in those days, but her heart and discipline were Navy.
One day a friend of hers from the Navy came to visit. He brought slides from Vietnam where he was an adviser, and after dinner my two brothers, myself and my parents sat down to see the slides.
The room was dark and we sat down to watch in our pjs as we had to go to bed after the slides.
The first slide, the friend of the family was standing on top of a mound of bodies.
The second slide was GI's wearing necklaces of ears around their necks. The third slide-
well, my mom cut on the lights.
She was shaking.
There were tears in her eyes.
He had come to talk to my stepfather about coming to Nam as an adviser - she turned to him and said he wasn't going and told us to leave the room.
I sat in bed. I was a good Catholic kid. But I had just seen something that I knew in my heart was wrong. I was torn. Maybe I even had a nervous breakdown. I was in military school, Catholic military school. The Marist priests would give us our prayer, then the military teachers would take over.
One day in military strategy class the officer in charge would say everything we were learning had nothing to do with Nam. We were on our own there.
I would have graduated a second lieutenant, ordering seasoned troops into combat.
I walked out of class, went outside and sat down and cried.
A priest who came upon me asked what was wrong. I let it all out. I no longer believed in the war.
He looked at me in horror.
"Are you saying that the President of the United States would lie?", the Priest said.
I would hear that from that day on for years to come.
From adults.
I was just a kid.
I quickly realized no one in school agreed with me. I had to find people that did.
Posted at 02:01 pm by Psychomike
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Monday, July 30, 2007
GROWING UP IN KLAN COUNTRY
President Lyndon Johnson had claimed we'd been attacked twice at a place called the Gulf of Tonkin. He had run for President promising peace and Barry Goldwater had come out and called him a liar. Goldwater said the plans were already in the works to fight in Nam, that Johnson knew this and was lying. Goldwater had promised to wage a full military campaign, not a piecemeal struggle, and if by 1965 the war was not won we would leave Viet Nam, as it had little strategic importance.
Sometimes I wonder to this day what would America be like if we had left Nam in 1965.
Goldwater questioned LBJ going around the Constitution for civil rights legislation and warned that by doing so we set a standard for imperial Presidencies for decades to come. Goldwater warned that Social Security could only keep going if each succeeding generation had increased in size, and he doubted the baby boomers would have kids the way their World War 2 parents did. All of this sounded bizarre to the American public, who were offended that Goldwater called LBJ a liar.
Years later it was discovered the Gulf of Tonkin incident had not happened the way LBJ told the public it had. There was never a "second attack", and the first was dubious at best. The man who had run promising there would be no war, launched a war that would tear apart families and plunge America into a cynicism it has yet to shake. Somehow most went from believing everything the President said, to almost nothing.
So my first awareness of the war was that it was LBJ's war. A man named Hubert Humphrey would form a student group I would later join called STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, but for now I was trying to discover who in Atlanta, Georgia agreed with me. The south was reluctantly giving up segregation, and a gay man named Lester Maddox became a folk hero for closing down his Pickwick Restaurant rather than serve blacks. Thousands of Georgians would line up to have him sign axe handles, meant to scare blacks with. Of course none of the rednecks would know he was gay until he died of AIDS years later.
There were no articles questioning the war, and no TV station dared have on civil rights leaders without segregationists in attendance to argue their cause. Usually freely allowed to use the word nigger as well. Today everyone claims they were against the war all along. It is a lie.
LBJ had come to power after JFK was assassinated - I still remember sitting in class when a class monitor came in crying and took the teacher outside. The teacher returned also crying. We were told to leave class and go home. The buses weren't running yet, I didn't want to wait in the long line at the payphone and walked home. I walked by student guards crying, and had no idea why. Had the nuclear war finally happened? What was going on? When I got home and my surprised mom told me the President had been shot, it was almost anti-climatic compared to the thoughts I'd been having.
I was still in ASFO, the Atlanta Science Fantasy Organization when a fanzine produced by one of its members hurled abuse at blacks who had written to Marvel comics asking for a black superhero. The title of the article was I'M A NIGGER AND I WANT A NIGGER SUPERHERO. Shocked I wrote a letter saying it was wrong to use the word, and Blacks should have heroes to look up to.
I received in the mail an envelope with a letter written on toilet paper threatening "my nigger loving life" and the author had enclosed human shit in the letter. The editor of the fanzine had actually put his return address on the envelope. Today he is famous for art about the civil war, but he's just a racist to me. This however, would be the least of the attacks that would happen to me in the years to come. It was only the beginning. ASFO however, had lost its appeal to me. I was reading underground papers and magazines on the new culture and that's what I wanted. I was reading less and less science fiction. None of the people in the group had even smoked pot, some members actually showed up to meetings drunk. Everyone drank in those days. I was into other things.
The first flyer I ever wrote against the war I passed out at Grady High School, after leaving military school. One day later, three adult men showed up at the door of class and told the teacher they had to see me. I went to the door. One man handed me a card with a man atop a horse in KKK robes holding a burning a torch. It read,
YOU HAVE BEEN VISITED BY THE KU KLUX KLAN
Contrary to popular belief, the original Klans and offshoots didn't carry the Confederate flag until the 1980's. The Stars and Stripes was their flag of choice.
and then they walked away. That day after school I went to my friend in the principals office and had him mimeograph for me a flyer describing the incident and promising to continue speaking out against the war. Students surrounded me baffled, wondering why I was against the war.I learned to argue when surrounded by dozens of people telling me I was wrong then. Johnny Reb was a singer out of New Orleans who sold loads of records in those days, and many students quoted his lyrics to me:
You niggers listen now
I'm gonna tell you how
To keep from getting tortured when the klan is on the prowl
Stay at home at night
And lock your doors uptight
Don't go outside or else you'll find those crosses a´ burning bright
Now i know you won't believe me
So i'm gonna tell you why
The cajun ku klux klan is gonna get you by and by
I'm warning you that when i'm through you gonna change your tune
This story is 'bout a nigger
His name was Levy Coon
He walked into a cafe
He thought he'd get a bite
He thought that they would serve him since they passed the civil rights
The waitress told him no
And that he'd better go
He said: "no mam, my uncle sam say i don't have to go!"
So he sat there in that cafe
Being stubborn as a mule
No matter what she said he wouldn't get up of that stool
He sat their like a jackass
And i'm gonna demonstrate:
"I came in here to eat and i ain't leaving 'til i've ate."
The waitress had enough
She said i call your bluff
She said if we can't treat you right we'll have to treat you rough
The phone was in her hands
She gave him one more chance
He wouldn't go and so she called the Cajun Ku Klux Klan
When he saw them Cajuns coming
Levy knew it was too late
His eyes popped out his head and his kinky hair got straight
He said: "oh lousy white folks
I didn't mean a thing
Why did i have to listen to that demonstrater King?"
Now niggers understand
They tied up both his hands
He was at the mercy of the Cajun Ku Klux Klan
I knew just what they do
Levy knew it too
I knew what kind of torture they would put that nigger through
Now the moral of this story
As plain as it can be
Niggers mind your buisness, and let us white folks be
You better heed my warning
And try to understand
Don't you demonstrate around the Cajun Ku Klux Klan
(Here is the story behind the above singer: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2003-07-01/commentary.html
But I was listening to someone else, and hoping to find someone who agreed with me. And though I was young, I knew a girl would be fun, too. So I listened to these words over and over. The words on this album were my only hope.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
BOB DYLAN
And I saw a girl at school, older than me, and I knew I wanted to lose my virginity to her.......... I still had high hopes.
Posted at 02:01 am by Psychomike
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Monday, August 06, 2007
WATCHED THE SECOND CITY WHITEWASH
The PBS channel showed the Second City documentary, a two parter, revealing the heavy handed way Second City now makes Del appear.
He doesn't.
In fact, half of the content of both episodes skips over the Belushi and Del years and instead promotes Canadian SCTV- a concept that Del had come up with according to Bernie Sahlins at the time of Del's death. He was never paid for it, nor did his name ever appear in the credits.
To avoid mentioning him they don't discuss ANY of the people that have taught at Second City. In fact, little is said about the classes at Second City in any medium.
Del only had two requests. He wanted his improv style used for more than comedy. He wanted his skull given to The Goodman to be used in plays.
Nothing he wanted was delivered. The skull at the Goodman is not his. The Harold is now used as a comedy training device.
They aren't just erasing my years with him, now they are erasing him.
The IO ( aka Improv Olympic, which wouldn't exist without him) even has a show up ATTILA attacking him.
Dear readers I promise you here this nonsense will not be tolerated.
Posted at 10:43 pm by Psychomike
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Vincent Price, Sears and Art
Born in San Diego by parents who had met in the Navy I grew up in Asia and found myself in South Carolina after a time in Virginia. Post 62, but I think JFK was still President.
My mom had me watch Vincent Price movies and along with my FAMOUS MONSTERS collection I had been exposed to his work on TV. I loved Boris Karloff as a kid, but Price was in the top 5. With Groucho, WC Fields, Bogart- good company!
When mom asked me if I wanted to go to Sears and meet him, I could come with her! Well that was a quick yes!
I couldn't think of much more than asking for his autograph and telling him I loved HOUSE OF WAX ! He was selling an art line for Sears, which allowed people to buy rare art prints for a few bucks down, and sold millions of dollars worth of art for Sears. (A Picasso limited edition might go for $300- a bargain and investment it would later turn out).
We walked into the store and it was the end of his time there. He was standing and talking to a couple that walked off, and I ran up to him.
He was very polite to me and I told him how much I liked his movies like HOUSE OF WAX and he laughed, turned to my mom and said, "Kids are watching those horror movies on TV and I hear this all the time. I wish they'd see LAURA-"
and I interrupted him and said I did! My mom had me watch it with her and he was great in that, too!".
He replied when I got older I might appreciate the woman in the lead GENE TIERNEY! ( He was right, and I got her autograph, too. She was in fact the woman who already had spawned adult thoughts in my mind, I realized not all women were like my mom after seeing her, but I wasn't going to say that in front of my mom!)
My mom talked about Tierney and they chatted about her (tragic) life and when there was a lull in their talk I asked for his autograph. He smiled and said yes, signed his name and drew his profile and gave it to me and told me to study art to understand life.
Years later I would teach at the Chicago Art Institute, 20th Century art history. From there I would go on to create and work in theatre and film.
And it all started with a trip to Sears, to meet Vincent Price.
Posted at 10:25 pm by Psychomike
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Posted at 08:49 am by Psychomike
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Saturday, August 25, 2007
MY DEBUT
I had been a fan of the Atlanta Horror movie host Bestoink Dooley, aka George Ellis and he had opened a movie theater that showed films no theater in the south would show. CHELSEA GIRLS, MY HUSTLER, SCORPIO RISING and other films at the zenith of the underground film movement were just a few of the films that played the Festival Cinema. He would later open the Film Forum which helped launch the ROCKY HORROR phenomenon in the south, but at the Festival he played the underground films I had read about in magazines like EVERGREEN and I decided underage or not, I wanted to go and see the films. There was a girl in my neighborhood I wanted to ask to go with me, she was older than me so I hoped he would let us in to see Warhol's MY HUSTLER if I could convince them she was my guardian!
The two screen effect of Chelsea Girls
She was the only exotic woman in Morningside in Atlanta. Some whispered she was Italian, some she was Jewish. Every time I saw her she was dating older guys, so I had to figure out how to approach her. I was barely a teen, and here she was 17 and being driven around by guys in their 20's!
I decided to just go up and talk to her, and I did. I told her about underground movies and Bestoink Dooley and she laughed and said we should carry on the conversation that night.
That night I met her by the Baptist Church which had a sloping hill and trees in a mini forest. Before the developers hit Atlanta, I was just two blocks from a street that ended in miles of cliffs and woods. Kids found old civil war bullets and even Indian arrowheads- it was a magical area at the end of a residential street!
She wore big hoop earrings (to this day those earrings get me excited) and we walked and talked. No adult had asked me what I was reading from the magazines before, and I talked about New York and the movie scene, which I still hadn't seen. It must have been the first time I talked to anyone about Andy Warhol and his movies. As we walked we came upon the sloped hill and sat down. For the first time in my life, it happened.
"It" was a pull, a kind of electromagnetic pull. We both felt it. At first she played with this feeling, which seemed to be new to her as well. She would draw her face close to mine, and the pull would happen. It was as if we were drawn to each other. After going back and forth like this a few times, and it would be years later I would learn it was probably our serotonin levels rising, she kissed me.
The pull happened again as we kissed and I lay back and saw the stars. We laughed about the feeling and she kissed me again.
I began to touch her. We began to touch each other, and there literally in front of God and everybody I lost my virginity. All the while feeling the pull of feelings.
Afterwards we hatched our plan to go to the Festival Cinema and made a date to meet in a few days to see the movie.
The next day I told my mom I had a date and she laughed and then got all serious. I'd have to clean the front room so we could chat before we left. I could tell my mom thought the whole idea, a 12 year on a date, was very cute.
The night came and She came to my door. I watched for her through the window I had been looking through for hours before the date when she glided to the door. Some women walk, some glide. She was a glider. I was excited and called my mom.
My mom walked to the door and opened it and there was this beautiful girl who had just driven up our driveway. My mom looked shocked. She asked her where my date was!
When informed the woman she met was my date, mom hit the roof.
As she yelled at her I could make out the words "slut", "whore" and the date was over.
I wanted to die.
I was all dressed up with nowhere to go, and my mom informed me I wasn't going on anymore dates.
No cell phones, answering machines or email in those days, I would have to wait for mom to leave to call her. I still wasn't any closer to the Festival Cinema. Later I tried to call her, but there was no answer.
I realized I could not stay home. The horse wasn't going back into the barn.
The next day I noticed MIN AND BILL was going to play the theater and that was all ages. So I went to the theater and decided to meet George Ellis, tell him I enjoyed his horror host personae, and maybe he would let me in for the underground movies. I entered the lobby and there at a desk were two of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Carol and Linda. George was out getting candy for the theater, and I started talking to these women. I have no idea what they thought as I talked about the factory in New York where Warhol made his movies, or comedians like Lenny Bruce and music and all this knowledge I acquired came out.
And they talked to me like an adult.
And they were wonderful and charming and stunning- Carol with her blonde hair and hourglass figure, Linda who looked like a model. We talked all the way through the film in the lobby when George Ellis showed up with bags of goodies to sell. Carol said, "This guy is cool" and my heart skipped a beat. When asked how old I was, I said 17.
George Ellis actually made a couple of movies to cash in on his Bestoink Dooley character that played drive-ins
They bought it. After all, how many 12 year old Georgians were knowledgeable about Andy Warhol? Or Kenneth Anger?
I went into the next showing of MIN AND BILL and as I left George told me to come back next week for SCORPIO RISING and CHAFED ELBOWS. I was in!
I couldn't wait to invite her, and without her trying to pretend to be my guardian it looked great. If she would still talk to me.
I finally reached her on the phone and she laughed off my moms comments and told me her parents were leaving town for a night and would I like to spend the night! Would I! She also said something that caused a great deal of anxiety. She said I kissed like a girl!
What did that mean?
I laid in bed watching the shadows cross and wondered what she meant.......
Her home was only a couple of blocks away, so I waited for my parents to go to sleep and snuck out. She greeted me at the door with her killer lips and dangling hoop earrings. She poured me a glass of wine and as we sat down on her bed I apologized for kissing like a girl! She laughed and said that was a good thing, that guys push their tongues (and themselves) on women and I kissed and waited for a response.
I didn't tell her that was because I had no idea what I was doing, but to this day, the woman has to make the first move!
And we kissed and fell into bed and the records on the spindle kept dropping and playing until I either passed out or was asleep.
The next morning it was 7 am when she woke me frantically. Her parents had come back early!
For the first time, I found myself throwing my clothes on fast, grabbing my shoes and climbing out the window to get out fast.
But what a night.
I entered my home quietly with my parents none the wiser.
Within one week I had made my first adult friends who knew the things I was dying to find out about, I had lost my virginity to a girl that would a few years later be in PLAYBOY, and jumped out a window ala Don Juan, not a bad start for a 12 year old!
Posted at 11:40 am by Psychomike
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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Dancing with John Belushi and No Pants
It was late. Maybe 2am. I was drunk. High. WASTED.
Earlier that evening I found the note from Patti on the kitchen table.
My mom is in town. I have to go to dinner with her.
There was about a 1/4 ounce of cocaine on a mirror on the table next to the note.
After months of no cocaine, suddenly it was back.
My mom is in town.
So I'd look out the balcony of 1939 North Lincoln to see if she was back yet, and go back and do a line. And another. And another.
This shit looked like mica, layers of shiny platforms of pleasure- this was the kind of cocaine someone could stomp on 10 to 1, and the people who got it would say it was the best they ever had. No teeth grinding, no running to the toilet. CLEAN.
What can you say about a drug that makes women horny, and men lose sexual control?
My mom is in town.
Got tired of that, decided to go to the Blues Bar. Walked to Wells Street and down the alley to the Blues Brothers Bar. I left her a note where I was going, but I didn't expect her back this night.
So I reach the house and there is Steve and he opens the door and says, "John is here" and I went from sad and stoned to happy and stoned.
I loved John Belushi.
"Mike get your fucking ass over here!", he yelled from the bar and I did. This time I brought the coke.
He hugged me and said, " How the fuck are ya!?!", and I hugged him back and said, "Can I have this dance?", and John broke into a frenzied laughter, grabbed me and we started to slow dance at the bar.
" I think Patti is getting suspicious", I said, and he dropped his pants as we danced and said,"Why?" and I couldn't stop laughing until my laughs turned into coughs.
People around the bar started laughing and I told him I had some amazing coke and he pulled his pants up and said, "Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" and he looked at the bag I produced and said, "What the fuck is this?".
It's coke John.
"Shit, lets do it".
And we did.
"GOD DAMN! IF THIS IS COKE, WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I BEEN DOING!" he yelled and then did another line and another and another.
So did I.
Patti and I had stopped buying coke and having it around the apartment while she worked with Playboy ( despite what you may have heard, by this time Playboy was really anti-drug), but we would still do lines when offered.
John was as cool as you could be in those days, an Illinois boy who had made it. A fucking genius straight or stoned. Yet whenever we ventured outside the bar if any stranger talked to him no matter how wasted, he would stop and say hi back.
That's the Chicago way.
I was sipping on Gin and Tonic (should be plural), and smiling and happy.
Around 5 am, I remembered Patti.
Patti fucking Petite.
Where was she?
The coke was gone, I was near blacking out and said goodbye.
John at this point just nodded.
I walked to the apartment, and noticed the lights weren't on.
Patti had to be there, because I left the lights on.
I ran up the stairs, fumbled for the keys, then thought she might be asleep so I should be quiet.
I opened the door, walked in and peeked in the bedroom.
No one was there.
I cut on the light in the kitchen.
There on the table was another 1/4 ounce of coke and a note.
I'LL BE BACK IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. WITH MY MOM.
Our society teaches us to do what our parents tell us to. Our society tells us blood is thicker than water.
But, what if our mom was a hooker who taught us to be one at age 12 and now wanted us back in the fold?
I had broken from my parents years ago.
Patti, still believed.
Posted at 08:25 pm by Psychomike
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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Letters to Quest For Slack!
LETTERS
I'll take a break from writing to post some cool notes and letters this blog has received about Atlanta and Bestoink Dooley.
Hey Mike,
I believe I remember you from the Strip. Could that be? Real young
kid at the time, as I recall. I probably have a photo of you in my
proof sheets. If you have not been to my web site the hippie stuff is
Carter Tomassi
(Carters website is a must to visit to see where I grew up!, and yes, he has found photos!)
That was a GREAT story.
Guess where the first house was that I ever owned outright in my life -- on Wessyngton Road
directly across the street from the Baptist church !!!! That was in 1968-69 !!
LOL FABULOUS
And we ALL knew Bestoink Dooley (aka George Ellis) and have been to his theater many times.
One of my friends, Jeannie Muse, from the 1960s who lived in and around the Mitchell House (as we all did at one time or another)
and I have have remained close friends ever since. She is coming to visit me sometime this week.
And she knew Bestoink more "intimately" than I --- I'll have her get in touch with you and tell you some of the
stories ;-)
She's not an Internet savvy person -- and has no Email knowlege -- so give me a phone number where she can reach
you and we'll give you a call, if you would like.
Miki (Foote) Davis
Just tried to search George Ellis and Bestoink, getting to see whom
was a great treat of visiting my grandmother in Decatur from South
Georgia backwaters, and I found an interview with you. Wow a
personality! I was so happy to read you were associated with the
Bettie Paige movie. My mother, named Bettie was a brunette and
resembled her so my photographer father was always posing her Bettie-
ish and suggestive. Bettie was always a good association to me. I
greatly enjoyed the movie and felt the person behind the masque.
Good job.
You've had an exciting life.
Pat Edmondson
You are, of course, referring to the one and only George Ellis. He is departed but will never be forgotten by those who loved him.
Many of us followed George and his Buddha presence from theater to the theater. First there was the Festival Theater downtown, then the Film Forum at Ansley, then a time at the Garden Hills, then a never realized attempt at the Ellis Cinema (now Variety Playhouse). Sadly, George died before the Ellis really came to realization.
George's memorial service was one of the most amazing events that I have ever had the pleasure to attend. The old theater space below the Women's Club on Peachtree (near 14th) was absolutely packed. For about 3 1/2 hours, people told George Ellis stories, laughed, hugged and generally became one with one of the most wonderful people to ever stroll the streets of this fair city. When we left, everyone was aglow.
There are tapes in existence of George doing the Bestoink Dooley character. I know someone who will know where those might be, I will try to seek him out and inquire about that.
George also had an off and on theater and film career. There may be taped footage of some of his theater performances, although they would likely be of questionable quality after all these years (the archival quality of video tape is not great). He also appeared in a few independent films in the 60's and 70's. You could google or imdb his name and find some of those. I worked on one or two and they were definitely not high points in cinematic history, and thus might be out of print (even in VHS).
Good luck with your search. I will try to get info on the Bestoink Dooley tapes.
Further.
Larry Rob
Hi mike, I remember Bestoink Dooley and the movie theater he ran the Ansley mall movie theater.
His real name was George something. I know he had a son here in Atl and I think that's who you'd
need to contact. I knew him years ago but have not seen him in years. I'll look into it and get back to
you. They were Greeks and I have some Greek friend who still live here that may no George Jr's
where abouts.
Sammy Blue
This site might have some way to link up with other fans to find some footage - it's devoted to regional horror hosts: E-Gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts: http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/hostsb.htmlThis site also links to a pix of him: http://cinematreasures.org/theater/12110/Horror host footage is sometimes hard to track down these days, though - regional tv didn't have the best track record of keeping materials around. The only footage outside of an Ed Wood film of Vampira is a short promotional clip made to sell a possible syndicated Vampira package - the original shows themselves seem to be lost at this point. Bestoink's film Legend of Blood Mountain might be the best source for footage of him, it was released a while back on video but I don't know that there is any DVD copies floating about: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0229528/One of the best "gray market" places for rare film is Pimpadelic Wonderland, which might be able to track it down if they don't already have a copy: http://pimpadelicwonderland.com/videolibraryAF.htmlHope some of this helps! Doug Rednour
I used to watch The Big Movie Shocker on old channel 5 every weekend and enjoyed Bestoink Dooley aka George Ellis!
He also played in a B Movie filmed at Stone Mountain, I think it was called Monster of Blood Mountain.
He passed away a few years ago and his son, who ran the Film Forum with him may still be living.
I spent many a stoned weekend attending movies at his theatre. We go get a sandwich at Crops and B
and after the flick have a munchies fix at the Fruit Jungle.
PS: Does anyone have any tapes or CD's from the Booger Band, I know they did some? I heard a cassette that was floating
around in about 1970 with "Feel A Pain" on it.
Thanks,
Duane Blalock
Posted at 10:13 am by Psychomike
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Del stood in front of the Sputnik.
Here it was, returned from space in all its glory. The Sputnik. We didn't have NASA before it went up. We didn't even really have a space program. Science fiction dreams and decades of hope were before him.
And the Soviet Union had been first.
Del walked over to sign the guest book and waited behind an old woman who constantly glanced over her shoulder as she wrote her thoughts on the exhibit of art, science and Sputnik. Del spent his time gathering his thoughts. Why hadn't America accomplished this? Could our system ever catch up to the Soviets? Or would anti-communism, born of paranoia and a crazy drunk named McCarthy forever keep us a step behind?
Del stepped up to the book and stopped to read what the old woman had written.
PLEASE TELL MY HUSBAND, WHO FOUGHT HITLER IN STALINGRAD, I LOVE HIM STILL AND FOREVER. HE IS IN ONE OF YOUR LABOR CAMPS.
"Labor camps? What labor camps?", Del wondered. He stepped forward and picked up the pen and wrote in the book,
Thank you for making a little boys dream come true.
Del walked into the sun his head filled with thoughts. The Soviet Union had ended forever racism, sexual inequality, had a vibrant music and arts scene. Equality was the name of the Soviet Union. And all they had to do was pass a few laws, and it had all ended. He had read this in the New York Times, while reading on other pages of civil rights workers vanishing from the south, the Democrats fighting for segregation, the horrible noise of rockabilly and country music. The Soviets understood folk music. And Del loved folk music, with its songs of labor, fighting the bosses and the future where all would be equal and fair and one. Just by passing a few laws.
All over New York City he could hear this song:
IF I HAD A HAMMER (The Hammer Song)
words and music by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
Del walked to the train and headed for The Village. THE VILLAGE. Home of folk, pot and heroin and booze and music and girls who liked to have sex and poets and life. He stepped into the world and headed for the newsstand. There was Leftie, old and grizzled a survivor of prohibition and seller of his magic cigarettes. 50 cents each, rolled on a machine he kept in the stand and a great buzz right before he went to hear music or poetry or sit in a bar and drink and argue the world.
" Hey I see your ex-partners made the papers today" Leftie said, holding up the paper.
All the color fell from Del's face. He could feel his feelings like waves- crashing from his head to his toes. He didn't think seeing a picture of the two of them would hurt him so. But it did. The act he had helped create, had moved on.
"No thanks", Del said, "Just the cigarette".
Del stood in the alley, remembering the abortion and watching the smoke float into the air.
"Del, man howdy!", came a voice breaking the wall Del was constructing in his mind.
"Hi", Del glanced up, "have a smoke?" and his friend stepped up and said sure and smiled and took a drag off the joint.
"You ever try heroin?", his friend asked.
Heroin. The drug of the village next to booze. Del had noticed how beautiful the women looked on it, heroin.
"Why the hell not", Del said.
"Why the hell not."
Posted at 11:11 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
There's a kind of rush.......
Chapter 5
"The Glasgow Caledonian University study of 126 users of the class A drug found many were holding down normal jobs and relationships and passing exams. The report said heroin could be taken in a controlled way" - BBC
It is an odd thing about heroin. A large percentage of addicts were abused as children, most often sexually. So the government failed to protect them as kids, and then arrests them as adults. Those in countries with legalized heroin and thus a constant quality available live longer, hold down jobs, families. With illegal heroin there is no quality control, the result is often death. By making heroin illegal, we give a death sentence to the self medicating abused.
There was a lot of dope around the music scene and a lot of musicians were deep into drug, especially heroin. People--musicians--were considered hip in some circles if they shot smack. Some of the younger guys like Dexter Gordon, Tadd Dameron, Art Blakey, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and myself--all of us--started getting heavily into heroin around the same time. Despite the fact that Freddie Webster had died from some bad stuff. Besides Bird, Sonny Stitt, Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, Gene Ammons were all using heroin, not to mention Joe Guy and Billie Holiday, too.There were a lot of white musicians--Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Red Rodney, and Chet Baker--who were also heavily into shooting drugs.
-Miles Davis in "Miles: the autobiography", page 129
Del sat at the kitchen table as his pal drained the spoon with his syringe. Del puffed on his cigarette and waited for his turn. He was nervous, but ready.
"Like man Bird, you dig, Charlie Parker can riff and jam off a sound and this dude who wrote HOWL, whatsisnameagin?", the pal asked.
Del looked up from the spoon, "Ginsberg".
"Yeah, yeah that's him, he's like a poet but he's a jazz poet man the way he riffs off the word 'who' is so cool and that's heroin man. That is heroin.That's poetry and all that jazz man, jazz and poetry are heroin. It's a consciousness a beat. A beat. A beat. It's ON THE ROAD so it isn't just poetry its everywhere, dig?".
Del nodded.
"We'll do this and go to Red Drum man and hear some poets. You'll see the heroin is the fuel of art man, its so cool. Here, let me do you first man. Bird did a tune about his dealer man, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDo_CPvdlP4 maybe he owed him money or he like was paying him tribute, roll up your sleeve man, but if you like this you can maybe do a comedy bit on me, Skeetz you know, like make comedy into jazz or poetry, ok I'm gonna put this in man your arm is so clean here we go...."
WOWWHATAFUCKINGRUSHLIKEFALLINGOFFACLIFFBUTLANDINGINMIDAIR it's warm. warm. warm like the night before christmas when dad was still alive and warm like a fireplace with a hot girl warm like butter left on a hot stove I can't move my legs my eyes I'm moving but where why am I moving my legs are so heavy I feel sick I feel sick that's it what if I could have said the words that kept dad alive I threw up I think or did I my eyes I'm so sleepy can't make the scene must make the scene I want to experience everything I want to sleep.
perchance to dream.
Posted at 12:43 pm by Psychomike
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